I was very shy. I'm still shy.

I can't do some of the songs that younger girls like Mary J. Blige and Beyonce are doing. They have their own place and I have my own place.

I know how to put it on when it comes to interviews and performing because I have to. But I'm pretty laid back.

Tell Aretha I’ll be praying for herBecause she needs Jesus!I love her.

All I can tell you really is if you get to the point where someone is telling you that you are not great or not good enough, just follow your heart and don't let anybody crush your dream.

So if anybody wants to get me something, get me 60 crabs - one for each year. I don't want no diamonds, I don't want no shoes, I don't want no party. I want some crabs.

God doesn't do the work for you; he does the work through you. It's not enough to look up; you must also look within.

That's another lesson I've learned the hard way. All relationships will die if they aren't nurtured. Just as a flower will die if it's not watered. Because love is demonstration, not declaration.

I don't feel as though I have to prove anything to anybody.

So if diva means giving your best, then yes, I guess I am a diva.

I just sing the stuff that makes me smile, makes me feel like I didn't sell myself out.

Her ‘death’ was the only way for her to live.

If it's in your personality to get out and talk to people, then you get to see what it is that city has to offer, through the people. A lot of the times with your own eyes you don't get to see that.

I eat stickers all the time dude!

All the fun is locking horns with impossibilities.

Reciprocity helps us balance the need for self-determination and creative individuality with mutual hope, and therefore what might be described as "solidarity".

Who you are isn't tied solely to what you say, even though it may feel that way to you now.

I honestly never understood how violence against women became a women's issue. 95 percent of the violence men are doing to women.

For me there are no rules. I think I learned that from artists-from painters and sculptors. It took photography a while to catch up to them.

I found out only recently that we were making an index of enemy code signs.

The ignorant torment themselves more than they do others.