You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.
Long tresses down to the floor can be beautiful, if you have that, but learn to love what you have.
I say if it's going to be done, let's do it. Let's not put it in the hands of fate. Let's not put it in the hands of someone who doesn't know me. I know me best. Then take a breath and go ahead.
Oh my goodness, they are rocking so many variations of my high-top fade. I mean, Rihanna has taken it to a very angular 21st Century thing. Miss Fantasia has it in a very seductive, you know, up-flip, and it's just lovely, right? Oh, I think it's wonderful.
My father worked on assembly lines in Detroit while I was growing up. Every day, I watched him do what he needed to do to support the family. But he told me, 'Life is short. Do what you want to do.'
Chris Brown is brilliant. That cat is crazy brilliant, and I wish him the best.
Completeness? Happiness? These words don't come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me, particularly given my medical history.
I have as many pictures of my vocal cords as I do of my children. I have a great ear, nose and throat doctor, and we look at them - if there's some redness, maybe I'll take a little time off.
I love radio, but it's a very limited thing today. Everything has to be edited down to 3:59, and too bad if I didn't make my statement in three minutes and 59 seconds. Everybody's song has to make its point so quickly.
I don't even have voice mail, and people get all out of shape about that. But, you know what, I don't want to transcribe your message; I want to talk to you. And that kind of freaks people out a bit. They go, 'Oh, who has time to talk?' and I'm like, 'Well, I'm gonna make time.'
As soon as you get off stage, that's the most dangerous time for a singer to kiss people because your vocal chords are receptive to any kind of germ.
Historically, in my generation, all of my heroes and heroines have had issues and problems. We all do.
We don't do drugs, drink or use profanity. Instead we instill morals and values in my boys by raising them with a love of God and a love and respect for themselves and all people. I believe they will have a chance.
If I could be doing anything, I'd be laying on the floor in my birthday suit eating junk food and watching something dumb on TV.
Typically, the theme of my albums, if there is a theme, is, 'How does it feel?' And that always leads to love songs. It just does.
I'm used to getting up at 7, getting breakfast, getting the kids off to school, and doing the mommy thing and the wife thing and the daughter thing.
I would say that my peak was making my first million at the ripe age of 29, after the first album.
Applause felt like approval, and it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily.
I used to sing at funeral homes for families that didn't have a vocalist. I didn't get paid. I needed to sing.
