“You know, maybe I was just born in the wrong time, but I love all things romantic. Puffy understands that. For my last birthday, he covered my hotel room floor with rose petals and had flowers and candles all over the room.”

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.

You like the way I dress The way I wear my hair Show me off to all your friends Baby, I don’t care Just as long as you tell them who I am Tell them I’m the one that made you give a damn.

And at the end of the day, I just want my work to speak for itself.

Mommy. It’s just the one thing you don’t want to mess up.

I judge people on how they smell, not how they look.

My mom always told me that if you work hard, you can achieve anything. And it’s true. It’s one of the truest things ever.

Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

I was born in a lovely white house with a garden.

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.

The things that are important to me – being a mother, a businesswoman, an activist – are all things that were borne out of great passion.

I have learned that champions aren’t just born; champions can be made when they embrace and commit to life-changing positive habits.

Spiritual life doesn’t make you a good person; you ARE a good person, you are a holy being when you are born. What spiritual life does is remind us that this is who we really are.

We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality.

From the Leaves, and Downs, and Beards of Plants, we come at last to the Seeds; and here indeed seems to be the Cabinet of Nature, wherein are laid up its Jewels.”