It hurts when you have to smile and you don't want to smile, but the best thing to do is to smile.

I know who I am. I am not perfect. I'm not the most beautiful woman in the world. But I'm one of them.

I listen to gospel music.

I don't know. Only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins. It's up to us to choose, whether we win or lose and I choose to win.

I have to have lemon and honey. I have to have apple cider vinegar, Braggs. And I have to have either Red Vines or Twizzlers. These things, you know, are the things that help my vocal performance.

There's so many things that life is, and no matter how many breakthroughs, trials will exist and we're going to get through it. Just be strong.

If you're looking for inner peace from the outside world, you're not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside.

Negative words are powerful boomerangs so be careful what you say about people and yourself.

When you come from so many damaged places you don't ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.

Believe in yourself when nobody else does.

When life is real, it's not going to be smooth.

Don't feel bad if your youth cannot be joyful, but at least make it useful.

I don't do rewrites. I put all the pages in a pile next to the typewriter.

It's the same story with a few crucial additions; the most important one is you.

God’s plan and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. We must learn to trust when we don’t understand.

The feelings cut too deep for them to be put on display.

Not enough is a spiritual state, not an economic one.

No matter how humble a man's beginnings, he achieves the stature of the office to which he is elected.

At age 12, I was put on tranquilizers when I should have gotten help. There was nothing major and awful, I just didn't feel my family was supportive and emotionally generous

I think, writing-wise, I am probably more of a quilter than a weaver because I just get a little scrap here and a little scrap there and sew them together.

My shows are about the complete woman who swallows it all. It's a question of survival.