I haven't stopped looking for the good in people. I've just accepted the fact that I'm not always going to find it.

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.

I think sometimes I think too damn much. I worry about this and that and everything else and then I wake up and four more years have slipped right out the back door.

Great writers create

I didn't go there lightly. I knew even then that this was the beginning of something very hard to reverse. But I couldn't do otherwise now: I was too possessed

You can't be a crazy rebel in the face of death, it's not a fitting attitude.

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial.

The greater the man, the more he is soaked in the atmosphere of his time; only thus can he get a wide enough grasp of it to be able to change substantially the pattern of knowledge and action.

Prayer no longer seems like an activity to me; it has become the continuing language of the relationship I believe God designed to fulfill a human life.

I made a promise to myself to be kinder to other people.

Feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the other trees make fun of it?