I try to choose the songs that really are basically coming from my heart. I think that through the songs that I select, people know what’s going on in my life.
I learned something from that. If someone asks me something that I really don’t want to do, I say no. I have to trust that. And I’m not afraid to talk money.
I really don’t think that Detroit was any different than New York of Boston or Philadelphia. Kids always wanted to listen to music outside because that’s where they hung out with their friends.
When I’m working I actually forget to eat. I don’t eat sweets because I don’t care about them. I have no real secrets. I just realize that as I get older I should stay strong so I exercise more.
Discipline is a necessary tool to help you get what you want in life. It forces you to stay on center and to move away from the things that are not necessary.
They tell me that it will be hard to find a man strong enough to love my own strength and independence, and not worry about being Mr. Diana Ross, but I disagree. I know absolutely that that man is somewhere out there.
What’s important for me is to give my daughters a well-rounded education and a mixture of people in their lives. They’ll make their own choices. I think they would be good in show business.
So I’m not worried about the emotions I carry with me, because I’m happy that I have them; I think it’s good for the work I do. The emotions that are not healthy are the ones you hold inside, like anger.
So every time I make a new circuit, a new time around, then I change the show. You can’t change the songs; people still want to hear “Lady Sings the Blues” and they still want to hear some of the oldies.
It’s easier for me to sit with the producers and the writers and I give them my feelings and my thoughts and what I think I feel like singing about and then they go away and write it.
I don’t judge people by their sexual orientation or the color of their skin, so I find it really hard to identify someone by saying that they’re a gay person or a black person or a Jewish person.
