“Just because you dress sexy doesn’t mean you’re a bad girl; it just means you know how to dress.”

I came from the Bronx and a certain background. I worked really hard. I kept my focus on the right things.

And I love the idea of spending the whole day in bed with my lover.

You have got to love yourself first. You have got to be ok on your own before you can be ok with somebody else. You have got to value yourself and know that you are worth everything.

I swear to God, I don’t remember anything Gwyneth Paltrow was in. Some people get hot by association. I heard more about her and Brad Pitt and I ever heard about her work.

I feel I want to grow as an actress and be better. I want to progress as a singer and songwriter, and produce movies and everything. So there’ll be no time when I feel I’ve done it all.

You mirror what the world mirrors to you.

If you kiss on the first date and it’s not right, then there will be no second date. Sometimes it’s better to hold out and not kiss for a long time. I am a strong believer in kissing being very intimate, and the minute you kiss, the floodgates open for everything else.

People equate sexy with promiscuous. They think that because I’m shaped this way, I must be scandalous – like running around and bringing men into my hotel room. But it’s just the opposite.

You know, maybe I was just born in the wrong time, but I love all things romantic. Puffy understands that. For my last birthday, he covered my hotel room floor with rose petals and had flowers and candles all over the room.

I have to work, for my soul.

I just knew that was what I wanted to do. I was going to perform as a singer; I was going to perform as a dancer, and I was, you know, going to do movies and be an actress. I was going to do it or die trying. That’s what my life was.

When I am wrong, I will learn the lesson and move on to face other challenges. For me, that’s what creating your own life is. Doing your best work while being your best self.

Whenever it feels uncomfortable to tell the truth, that’s often the most important time to tell it.

If you ask me, I’d like to become the first female president. That would be really cool. The first thing I would do is redecorate the White House, it doesn’t look very cozy.

I was always a singer and a dancer, and I always wanted to be an actress. For me, it’s all just one thing.

You’ve gotta do things that make you happy.

I wear black all the time.

Beauty is the enemy . We try to conquer not feeling beautiful all our lives. It’s a battle that can’t be won. There’s no definition of beauty. The only way to achieve beauty is to feel it from inside without breaking down into individual physical attributes.

All my life, men have told me I wasn’t pretty enough – even the men I was dating. And I’d be like, ‘Well, why are you with me, then?’ It’s always been men putting me down just like my dad. To this day when someone says I’m cute, I can’t see it. I don’t see it no matter what anybody says.

It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.

Everyone got to choose what they wanted to wear on stage, and by the third time going into wardrobe the stylists already knew what I’d love and what I would never throw on my body in a million years. They were fantastic, and it was so lovely working with them.

I think that women are afraid to be vulnerable because they think it makes them look weak.

I definitely feel like if I put out a song that was like me being super vulnerable, people would look as me as weak. I don’t know if that has to do with me being a girl, or if that really has to do with anything, but I’m sure.

I was very vocal about how I wanted to be portrayed on the show, and how I wanted the stage setup to be.