“I believe that children are our future”

God gave me a voice to sing with, and when you have that, what other gimmick is there?

I finally faced the fact that it isn’t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.

I think over the years, being a mother, I’ve matured in so many ways.

I’ve turned down a lot of arena dates because I’ve done the big-arena thing. Now, I want to do something where people can feel me and I can feel them.

I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy.

Never let your heart take precedence over reason, otherwise you will have problems.

Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.

If you say my eyes are beautiful, it’s because they are looking at you.

No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do.

What’s in your soul is in your soul.

She’s my teacher, my adviser, my greatest inspiration.

In grammar school some of the girls had problems with me. My face was too light. My hair was too long. It was the black-consciousness period, and I felt really bad.

I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside.

My mother taught me beauty really lives in places like a smile.

Growing around great musicians, you just can’t help it. I identified with it immediately. It was something that was so natural to me that when I started singing, it was almost like speaking.

I like being a woman, even in a man’s world. After all, men can’t wear dresses, but we can wear the pants.

Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

As long as you believe in yourself, there is no limit to the greatness you’ll do. The universe is magic I promise it’s true.

My spirit will rise from the grave and the world will see I was right.

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.

We believe that in reducing the scope and importance of our errors, we are properly humble; in truth, we are merely unwilling to bear the weight of our true responsibility.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act.