I'm not Rihanna. I'm not cool. When people come up to me in the street, they often want a hug, not a photo, and they want that because they like my work.

You cannot live your life to please others. The choice must be yours.

Whatever you are made of, be the best of that.

A man told me that for a woman, I was very opinionated. I said, 'for a man you're kind of ignorant'.

I have no aspirations of world domination through the pop charts. None at all.

I believe I've always been a big believer in equality. No one has ever been able to tell me I couldn't do something because I was a girl.

I think that people had this idea that I sat at home and sucked on lollipops and ate cotton candy while I watched cartoons - wearing a tiara.

Oftentimes, what you wind up learning is very different than what you expect.

But you have to remember in life that there's a positive to every negative and a negative to every positive.

Your face needs to have character if you're an actor - otherwise you're just a face.

I've always believed in people's capacity for goodness. I still believe that people are good. What I'm not so trusting about anymore is their relationship to their own goodness.

If you want to find God, then all you need to do is love.

Calling it as you see it, should include yourself as well.

Are you depressed?""What? I don't know. Probably. Isn't everyone?

The most futile cry of man is his impossible wish to be understood

Swing a bigger brush - you don't know what you're missing.

After a couple of years, I realized that this was actually true, that his gave me the ability to go to a different place and, hopefully, have a stronger impact.

I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else.

Wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.

There are two types of people in life - those who get it and those who don't.

I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America.