I've been around long enough for people to know who I am and what my contributions are. They know me as more than just an artist. I think they know me as a woman as well.

We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It's our basic human right.

Be your own artist, and always be confident in what youre doing. If youre not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it.

Soul is a constant. It's cultural. It's always going to be there, in different flavors and degrees.

I'm a big woman. I need big hair.

If you disrespect everybody that you run into, how in the world do you think everybody's supposed to respect you?

People really don't have to give you anything, so appreciate what people give you. And just don't let that go to your head, whatever it is they give you.

Don't say Aretha is making a comeback, because I've never been away!

Falling out of love is like losing weight. It's a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.

My faith always has been and always will be important to me.

Everything you do makes my body scream with loneliness. When I see you, the room swallows me. I find myself at the bottom of the pool.

Man has a choice and it's a choice that makes him a man.

Nothing stayed, nothing ever changed. But love, only love, that was the true part of the story, no matter what the beginning, middle or end.

To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.

That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget.

If you can't support us when we lose or draw, don't support us when we win

I guess I have learnt now that life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.

The Spirit speaks directly to our hearts through music. That's why music has always had such power to move people into positive action.

I do not think that we have psychological and ethical and economic problems. We have human problems, with psychological, ethical and economical aspects, and as many others as you like.

A lot of good things in my life came form half of my mistakes.