I like hip-hop music, but some of the lyrics make me want to cry.

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.

Discipline is for professionals. Motivation is for amateurs.

And sometimes, when you feel low on yourself, that's just when you have to go out there and be photographed or do a scene where you're hot stuff. You're always working on it.

I have Algerian, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish blood: I feel like a citizen of the world. Life and cinema don't have borders.

All art is autobiographical.

What is the thing that Will could do to make me not love him? That would make me abandon him? I can’t think of one. I'm sorry. Except if he did something bad to the kids - now we've got a problem.

We unjustly defraud God of his right, unless each of us lives and dies in dependence on His sovereign pleasure.

Advice is like kissing: it costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do.

Our journey of discipleship is not a dash around the track, nor is it fully comparable to a lengthy marathon. In truth, it is a lifelong migration toward a more celestial world.

Ive been to London twice. I saw the Broadway show Billy Elliot there - phenomenal. I was crying through the entire thing.

The terrible thing about the internet and Amazon is that they take the magic and happy chaos out of book shopping. The internet might give you what you want, but it won't give you what you need.