“Things don’t always turn out exactly the way you want them to be and you feel disappointed. You are not always going to be the winner. That’s when you have to stop and figure out why things happened the way they did and what you can do to change them.”

The truth is, everything that’s happened was supposed to happen. That doesn’t mean I don’t look back and think, God, I wish I hadn’t had to go through some of those things.

The media – they want to rush everything. They want to give their seedy opinions without knowing all the facts.

I love what I do. I have an insatiable appetite for creating things and wanting to get better at what I do and always growing and never stopping. I don’t know. It’s something I was born with. It’s definitely a drive. It’s a passion, and it’s driven for a love for what I do.

Until you value yourself enough and love yourself enough to know that, you can’t really have a healthy relationship.

I honestly wear myself out walking around, fixing this and fixing that. Maybe that’s why I like to work so much – so I can just get to that moment where I’m like, “Whoa.” I have to be super tired and knocked out to stop!

I like to cook Puerto Rican food. That’s what I grew up on: rice, beans, meat, some Italian-American food. I know my way around the kitchen.

You have to take care of yourself, your body, your mind, take care of your soul-be your own keeper.

If anyone can figure out how to balance my celebrity and my dual careers in music and film, it’s me. I don’t feel frightened; I feel challenged.

You have to remember the value of your individuality – that you have something special and different to offer that nobody else can.

I have my own high standards for what I want in a partner and how I want to be treated. I bring a lot to the table. I’m not talking about material things but what I have to offer as a person – love and loyalty and all the things that make a good relationship.

For me, love is the never-ending question. It is confusing. It is the answer, but it is also inundated with contradictions and complications.

You get what you give. What you put into things is what you get out of them.

You’ve gotta do things that make you happy. As women, we tend to give away a lot. We take care of a lot of people, and we can’t forget to take care of ourselves.

Once you have a lot of success, you become a target in many ways.

My parents wanted me to be a lawyer. But I don’t think I would have been very happy. I’d be in front of the jury singing.

People used to believe their life-or at least their life as a performer-was over at 28 or some ungodly age! God, when I think of myself back then, I had no idea who I was. I think I’m barely getting that under control now.