“If you disrespect everybody that you run into, how in the world do you think everybody’s supposed to respect you?”

Be your own artist, and always be confident in what you’re doing. If you’re not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it.

When God loves you, what can be better than that?

The man who gets me is getting one hell of a woman.

And I’ve been hurt hurt bad. I might be just twenty-six, but I’m an old woman in disguise twenty-six goin’on sixty-five.

I’m a big woman. I need big hair.

I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is.

My faith always has been and always will be important to me.

Now, occasionally I will still have that quarter pounder because I love fast food, but you have to keep it to a minimum.

Women have broken through the glass ceiling, and they’re now more and more in the power seats.

Politics are not my arena. Music is.

Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It’s transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It’s uplifting, it’s encouraging, it’s strengthening.

People really don’t have to give you anything, so appreciate what people give you. And just don’t let that go to your head, whatever it is they give you.

I’m the lady next door when I’m not on stage.

I love to sing. It’s just a natural thing for me.

Let’s start with the church. As you know, it’s my background, it’s a natural setting for me and it’s definitely my roots.

I don’t feel one’s personal medical condition is everybody’s business. It just isn’t something you advertise, and it’s not open to discussion.

We have tolerance, respect, and equality in our written laws but not in the hearts of some of our people.

I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

What is at stake is human dignity. If a man is not accorded respect he cannot respect himself and if he does not respect himself, he cannot demand it.

Raised voices lower esteem. Hot tempers cool friendships. Loose tongues stretch truth. Swelled heads shrink influence. Sharp words dull respect.

Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other.

Never make yourself feel like nothing, to make someone else feel like everything.

If I only give you what you deserve, at least keep me away from what I don’t deserve.

If you respect yourself and you love yourself, that’s the only way anybody else is going to.