Always stay true to yourselves.

It's believing you can push through the exhaustion just to be able to sing after you do a cartwheel or a split.

I prefer to sing in the shower because the acoustics make you sound great, baby.

I cried when I found out I was a finalist, I kind of went limp when they called my name. I felt like my spirit jumped out of my body, and I was just flesh - it was just amazing.

The live setting is always better for me. I usually thrive at live. I feel like having a band behind me and being able to interact with the crowd helps boost my energy up.

If my life was a song the title would be 'Naima'.

I've been doing African dance all my life.

I wouldn't mind doing Broadway, but I am definitely trying to get a album out there first.

I couldn't imagine having to write a paper and have to think about what song I am going to sing.

The real scientist is ready to bear privation and, if need be, starvation rather than let anyone dictate to him which direction his work must take.

I like radically cutting into the painting, inserting these paper birds, and then trying to figure out how to believe in it.

You are done for - a living dead man - not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the mystery of life.

The things you do today that you don't have to do will determine who, what, and where you will be when it is too late to do anything about the things you should have done.

There are some things that can't be measured.

But, to the extent that I cannot solve MY problem with the same thinking I used when I created it, you're right. We need the fresh air that comes from others to see things in other ways.

I just want to not be me.

I wanted to write a story that was different than what I've done before - so I decided to write dual love stories that will keep the reader wondering how the stories will come together by the end.

Go at life with abandon; give it all you've got. And life will give all it has to you.