Things are never perfect, so I never get too high about things, or get too down about things anymore.

I just want to have fun.

I feel like when the task is more difficult for me it's more exciting.

You have to go through rough patches to achieve great things

I like to go shopping, to the movies, all the girl stuff. Just a normal girl.

Trying your best is bringing your best... that's the way to do it! Desire and passion is everything.

That intensity, that feeling of the battle, heat of the moment: personally, that's what I live for.

Nobody will tell me what I can or I cannot do.

I always take things step by step and match by match.

I wouldn't say I let myself down, just sometimes it doesn't go your way.

My grandmother is the person who inspires me the most.

A beautiful death is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—loved and wanted.

When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors Landor replies "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."

Business can be a source of progressive change.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

We pick bygone time up by the handfuls and, like clay, see if it feels right and then form it into stories about the past.

All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself.

To be black and beautiful means nothing in this world unless we are black and powerful.

I know what it's like to be shoveling to pay bills. I know what it's like to not have a job.

The classic, quote/unquote, craft of songwriting still works; it still is relevant.

Now at 47, 48 I am expected to do ten times better work that I did when I was 24.