“I stay true to myself and my style, and I am always pushing myself to be aware of that and be original.”

I don’t think about my previous success. I’m happy that the work I’ve done has been very successful.

All I can do is leave it in God’s hands and hope that my fans feel where I’m coming from.

I’m a total performer.

I don’t want to abandon one work for the other, and I don’t think I need to sacrifice anything to put my all into either one of them.

Keep working hard and you can get anything that you want.

It’s fun to be creative and innovative and come up with something crazy. So I need people to work with who are not going to be afraid to take it to the left a bit.

It’s in how you carry yourself. I’ve always been a very mature person, and I’ve always known what I wanted. And I go after it no matter what.

People are gonna look up to me because I’m young, black, and female.

I began to work the stage and get the audience into it. I also learned how to have fun out there. It is something I will never forget.

I think it’s important to take a break, you know, from the public eye for a while, and give people a chance to miss you. I want longevity. I don’t want to get out there and run myself ragged and spread myself thin.

If you want to go to the mall, you have to take security. But it’s always cool. The kids are amazing.

I know that people think I’m sexy and I am looked at as that. It is cool with me. It’s wonderful to have sexy appeal. If you embrace it, it can be a very beautiful thing.

The Matrix is top secret. There isn’t much that can be said right now.

There is always a bit of pressure to do a good album – to do good work, period. I really put a lot of pressure on myself, more so than other people. But I try not to let that overwhelm me to the point where I can’t even do good work. I just put it aside and do the best that I know that I can.

When a fan comes up to you and says I love your music, there’s nothing better than that.

It’s Friday and I’m ready to swing. Pick up my girls and hit the party scene.

Comedy is the one absolutely self-aware art form. Actually, hip-hop’s another one, I suppose. Because in your songs you’re talking about how good a hip-hop artist you are. It’s like a painter painting a panting of himself painting a painting.

As soon as I start to write I’m very aware, I’m trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I’m writing – and I think that this is important for all writers – I’m trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth.

I don’t think there was really a time when I have not been politically aware.

Life is a lot sweeter, I think, than you can be aware of it at times.

It is possible to be aware of God at all times.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

We all know you’re beautiful, scott.