“My heart is still there in gospel music. It never left . . . I’m gonna make a gospel record and tell Jesus I cannot bear these burdens alone.”

As a parent you try to maintain a certain amount of control and so you have this tug-of-war … You have to learn when to let go. And that’s not easy.

Falling out of love is like losing weight. It’s a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.

Yes, I’ve always been fashion conscious.

R&B is not a fad; it’s the truth.

The milk of kindness flows through my body, I shall follow Jesus to the Taco Bell and give thanks.

Music changes, and I’m gonna change right along with it.

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.

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

I’ve been around long enough for people to know who I am and what my contributions are. They know me as more than just an artist. I think they know me as a woman as well.

Parents have to really talk to their children before they leave home.

We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right.

I know people I feel are extremely talented, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard any geniuses.

I saw the Supremes when they were still singing in little black skirts and white blouses.

I love producing, writing. I rarely write with other writers unless I have a real great respect for them. Like Burt Bacharach, or Carole Sager, or Stevie Wonder. Somebody like Smokey – like that. Otherwise, I choose to write alone.

Gospel goes with me wherever I go. Gospel is a constant with me.

I’ve never recorded anything I didn’t like.

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That’s all it is.

I relax and cast aside all mental burdens, allowing God to express through me His perfect love, peace, and wisdom.

You were so gentle with my messy burdens, my tender wounds and the cracks in my broken soul that I became gentle with them, too.

I wait and wait and wait and god I am sick of waiting. To not see your face anymore. To not know the burden that belongs to you. To not imagine the window I looked through the night I found out.

The notion that work is a burden is a terrible mistake. Working and facing up to one’s responsibilities: That’s happiness.

Help someone in distress and you lighten your own burden; the very joy of alleviating the sorrow of another is the lessening of one’s own.

Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.

I was always willing to take a great deal of the burden of getting along in life on my own shoulders, but I wasn’t willing to give myself a pat on the back. I was always looking to somebody else to give me that. .. That was all wrong.