I have such memories; I keep thinking about all the people I worked with. I was in the recording studio and I was talking to one of the engineers who is 24 and they don't know these people. They just absolutely don't know the people and it just tickles me. I don't feel like I've grown up.

I've never been damaged or hurt by press. It's just that I think it's unfair to use your name in media.

It takes a long time to get to be a diva. I mean, you gotta work at it.

I just think Josephine Baker life story needs to be done. I think she was an extraordinary woman. To see someone who was basically a showgirl have the kind of lifestyle she had was extraordinary. I really think she made her own lifestyle.

I try to choose the songs that really are basically coming from my heart. I think that through the songs that I select, people know what's going on in my life.

I really, deeply believe that dreams do come true. Often, they might not come when you want them. They come in their own time.

I'm from a singing family, but they're not professional singers, only gospel - my grandfather was a minister. I started to sing the music that was out then because my mother used to play it all the time. It was the end of the '50s, the beginning of the '60s. There was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Etta James... We used to sit outside on the stoop and sing. We even used to put our radios and record players outside.