“I’m a person who has life and wants to live, and always have.”

From the beginning, the camera and I were great friends. It loves me, and I love it.

Nobody likes to be picked on. Nobody.

I’m not crazy about arenas just because I can sell them out. It doesn’t do anything for my ego at all. I want to play places where people don’t have to sit in the nosebleed seats and wonder what the hell is going on.

I’m proud of being a mother, a wife, a daughter, and a sister, and a lover and a friend We’re all God’s children.

I’d rather be alone than unhappy

I believe the children are our future

I feel so blessed to just have done what I had done. To be able to just use what God has given me is a blessing. You know, never mind the Grammys, never mind the records, never mind all of that. Just to be able to sing.

If I should die this very day, Don’t cry…cause on Earth We wasn’t meant to stay.

My mother taught me that when you stand in the truth and someone tells a lie about you, don’t fight it.

I wish to you, joy and happiness. But above all this, I wish you love

Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be.

I was aware of people staring at me. No one moved. They seemed almost in trance. I just stared at the clock in the center of the church. When I finished, everyone clapped and started crying.

God gave me a voice to sing with, and when you have that, what other gimmick is there?

I finally faced the fact that it isn’t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.

I think over the years, being a mother, I’ve matured in so many ways.

I’ve turned down a lot of arena dates because I’ve done the big-arena thing. Now, I want to do something where people can feel me and I can feel them.

A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don’t necessarily want to be alive.

Keep hope alive!

Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes. Keep hope alive.

When scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it’s alive; then they have the parts and they’ve lost the whole, for the link that’s missing was the living soul.

It’s always nice to have those WTF moments that keep us aware.

We always honor our people when they die; we’ve got to honor them while we’re still alive.

I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon but I want to STAY ALIVE.

Fear will keep you alive in a war. Fear will keep you alive in business. There’s nothing wrong with fear.