We are all the same and we all want the same things: the right to be happy, to be just who we want to be and to love who we want to love.

Make sure you have your own life before becoming someone's wife ~spoken to Oprah in an interview

Being pregnant was very much like falling in love. You are so open. You are so overjoyed. There's no words that can express having a baby growing inside of you so, of course, you want to scream it out and tell everyone.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny's Child put out 'Independent Women,' and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

It is so liberating to really know what I want, what truly makes me happy, what I will not tolerate. I have learned that it is no one else's job to take care of me but me.

I know you want me back. It's time to face the facts. That I'm the one that's got away. Lord knows that it would take another place, another time, another world, another life. Thank God I found the good in goodbye.

I'm very proud of my sister and protective of her. Solange is the one person I will fight for. Don't talk about my sister; don't play with me about my sister. If you do, you'll see another side of me. I admire her, and though she's five years younger than me, I strive to be like her. She's so smart and secure. She's sensitive to people's feelings, but not afraid of what they think.