“I learned you really do have to make sure you enjoy life.”

To me, I always felt like I was carrying a torch for women of any size to be themselves – it doesn’t matter whether you’re a size 2 or a 22, just be who you are.

Every woman is a queen, and we all have different things to offer.

Dreams become reality when we put our minds to it.

It’s not always easy to do the right thing. But, doing the right thing makes you strong, it builds character.

Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self.

I write pretty often. I have a home studio. Music is what I do for fun. I never get tired of it, so to take a break from [TV and movies], I would go make some music.

If my brother and I wanted money in our pockets, we had to get jobs – my first was at 15, at Burger King.

There are different flavours of sexiness.

There are so many things I’d like to do. Like becoming a parent. To me that is the next natural progression in life.

You need to give yourself the time to think freely. I don’t know if that is political. But sometimes things are political because you observe things that are right or that are wrong and you want to speak on them.

I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female.

You can huff and puff. But blow me down? I doubt it kid, or you get your ass whupped.

When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, ‘You’re either going to love yourself or hate yourself.’ And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things.

I think as far as the music industry is concerned, it’s kind of been the wild, wild West in a way with the Internet, which is not necessarily a bad thing to me.

I do feel like I have a direct connection with God for some reason; always have since I was a little kid – I would talk to God, talk to the sky.

Look at people for an example, but then make sure to do things your way. Surround yourself with positive people.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

The whole like of a man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.

But a man cannot by writing a bill of divorce to his vice get rid of all trouble at once, and enjoy tranquillity by living apart.

I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn’t mean anything? What then?

If you only enjoy the chase I’m not racing anymore, I’ve set my own pace.

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

Don’t be serious, enjoy life as it comes.

Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth — look at the dying man’s struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.