You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.
If you have your own agenda and your own style and you don't easily conform to what the masses are doing, you're looked upon as being difficult. Whereas, I think of it as just being an individual.
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.
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.
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'd love to be the political voice of my generation, but that's not my gift.
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.
Time has nothing to do with the gifts that the gods give you; it's what you do.
I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress.
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.
I think there's no sacrifice too great for family, whether it's career, singing, whatever.
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.
Chris Brown is brilliant. That cat is crazy brilliant, and I wish him the best.
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.
I'm picking and choosing in terms of the stress factor. If it's not fun, I'm not going to do it.
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.
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.'
Long tresses down to the floor can be beautiful, if you have that, but learn to love what you have.
