If you're not feeling good about you, what you're wearing outside doesn't mean a thing.

The ultimate of being successful is the luxury of giving yourself the time to do what you want to do.

Art is the only thing you cannot punch a button for. You must do it the old-fashioned way. Stay up and really burn the midnight oil. There are no compromises.

I am here and you will know that I am the best and will hear me. The color of my skin or the kink of my hair or the spread of my mouth has nothing to do with what you are listening to.

Accomplishments have no color.

Who I am is the best I can be.

I have never given all of myself, even vocally, to anyone. I was taught to sing on your interest, not your capital.

Be black, shine, aim high.

You should always know when you're shifting gears in life. You should leave your era - it should never leave you.

For a long time the only time I felt beautiful-in the sense of being complete as a woman, as a human being, and even female-was when I was singing.

I prefer to leave standing up, like a well-mannered guest at a party.

It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.

As one skeleton said to the other - if I had any guts I'd get the heck out of here.

He was one of those men who possess almost every gift, except the gift of the power to use them.

Where does she get all the energy? Where does he get all the energy? Nobody GET's energy. Everybody releases energy.

If people don't like your work, all the still pictures in the world can't help you and nothing written about you, even oceans of it, will make you popular.

If you tell someone a secret, and ask them to keep it secret, you are asking them to display a discretion you are unable to display yourself.

Minsk! How pissed-off that sounded! It was great. You could scare the bejayzus out of someone if you said it right.

One day the virtual world might win over the real world.

Happiness is pretty simple: someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to.

You can only acquire it successfully if you cease to feel any sense of shame.