I'm on my way to a place where I'd never dreamed I'd be, and that's perfection.
My responsibility to God is to live. That's the gift he gave me. What I do with it is up to me.
I mean, I know my heart is not clean, and your heart is not clean, and none of our urban hearts are clean. But you can be washed again.
In your life there's peaks and valleys and sometimes we regress, and we don't even know we regress. You just have to learn how to accept all of your mistakes and learn to love yourself again.
You know a lot, but you don't know everything.
My journey continues, because I've, you know, conquered a lot. And I know how to conquer the rest.
As far as men go, they never gave me a chance to be me; they were always scared that somebody was going to take me.
Cause I'm no better than you, you, or you. And I can't get on no throne and preach, 'cause I'm not God.
It's not just songs and glamour. It's sweat, blood, broken toes, and mistakes... It's life.
No one intimidates me because I'm not trying to do what you do, because I can't do what you do. I can only do what Mary J. Blige can do, so that relaxes me right there, and it gets me out of the competition and that whole thing.
No one compares to you. Just remember that. There's no one out there - there's only one of you, and that's it. And whatever you believe about you that's great, no one else has it. And I can't look like you, there's no way I can slip into your body and be you, and you can't slip into my body and be me. This is all we're gonna get.
You can hate me. You can go out there and say anything you want about me, But you will love me later because I told you the truth.
It's that first step-getting out the door-that's the toughest. If you can do that, you've already won.
I don't want no drama in my life, even though we have a little bit, but no more letting people control you. That's drama, because then you become something that you're not.
I blame my mother for nothing, but forgive her for everything.
Just don't let the hype of what people are saying and how much they love you, y'know, just take the compliment and be thankful that people are complimenting you, but don't let it consume you; don't let your circumstances around you and the way people view you make you act a certain way.
I had to learn how to trust my gut. Trust what I know to be right... not right, but not waver on who I am. Know who I am, know what I want, and know it. Not waver on it and be secure in that. And I still struggle with it. But I really... I can't be moved. You can't move me, and that all comes with loving myself, and I'm like my best buddy.
I like hanging out with me, and I've accepted everything about me good, bad whatever it is. That's why I'm able to, that's why no one can tell me anything negative about myself.
I wish I had known that education is the key. That knowledge is power. Now I pick up books and watch educational shows with my husband. I'm seeing how knowledge can elevate you.
Music makes us want to live. You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has.
God loves me and sent his son to die for me so I have to live to please him because he saved me when everyone abandoned me.
So as long as I'm a human being and I'm not perfect, I'm able to say I'm having some growing pains. Because in order to sustain where you are once you made such a breakthrough that everyone is looking at you, now everyone is like, 'Ooh, is she gonna make a mistake?' Yes, I'm going to make a mistake. Yes, I'm still gonna do things.
You can't get around pain and opposition, but you can try to be joyful in the trial, and thank yourself for the trial, and thank God for the strength to get through it.
Everything is scary if you look at it. So you just got to live.
Yonkers made me strong and made me believe in myself, because so many people would doubt you and not believe. There are people that would believe in you, but the environment was so harsh, nobody wanted you to get out, you know?
