My mama never wore a pair of pants when I was growing up, and now that's all she wears. It was so funny for me when I first started seeing Mama wear pants. It was like it wasn't Mama. Now I've bought her many a pantsuit because she just lives in them.
I haven't stopped working since I was 10.
I have two favorite colors - white and yellow. White makes me feel light and airy. Yellow makes me happy.
I have just one tube of lipstick, but it's as big as a can of hairspray.
If you can read, you can find books on anything you want. You can self-educate even if you can't afford to go to school.
My mistakes are no worse than yours.
We get along real well actually [with my husband Karl Tomas Din]. We give each other space and he's not in the business and he doesn't want to be. I'm interested in his world, he's interested in mine, but we have our own things that we do together.
I'm very upfront and very honest. I don't let a bunch of stuff fester and boil over.
Unless you have spent your life doing something, you are not likely to be successful, so always partner with people who are smarter than you.
Any business you go into, you have to think about how much money you are willing to put into it, and how much you are not.
With the first money I ever made I bought my Mommy and Daddy a car, and helped them fix their house up.
In fact, I bought our first family television with my own money, putting it on credit and then paying it off every week.
The world is my stage. I try to be good at it, whatever part I'm playing - even in my daily life or when the spotlight hits me on the stage to perform - I gotta be alive every second in this world. With or without the applause!
I know the struggles of poor people, and have always kept that with me.
I think being poor has been good for me. I saw how my mom and dad struggled, and how they could stretch a dollar farther than you could begin to imagine.
I have a life outside the arenas.
I embrace everybody for who and what they are.
I just always knew I was going to be a star. I was always going to be rich so I could buy things for Mommy and Daddy, so that I could buy them a big house and we could have things.
I don't think I'm a great actress. I think I can act or I can react. Coming from a musical background and being a dramatic singer and writer, when I write stuff I really feel it. So I sing it like it comes from here. That's how I do the acting.
I'm not really a political-type person, meaning that I don't really make great stands or whatever, but if you ask me a direct question I say it shouldn't matter who you are, whether you're black, white, green, gay, male, female. If you can do a job and do it well you should be paid for it, you should be respected for it, and you have to be responsible. I think sometimes people can go too fare trying to make a point. I think they should just make their point and go on about.
Many of my friends are gay, male and female. I don't judge people. I don't care what people do in their bedrooms and people shouldn't care what I do in mine.
You never know what's going to happen to you when you head out into the big world. And when you get older, you don't know how you're going to be thought of or seen.
I write a little something every day, even though I don't write a song [every day]. Everything inspires me. I'll come up with a line, or somebody will say something that will trigger something.
I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing.
I do have a natural sense for business, which I think I get from my Dad.
