I can tell you I didn't feel good when I could not articulate properly. Getting my GED was important and I want other women to feel that.

I've just been growing right along. It's painful, but it's a great pain, and I like suffering for great results. It's like going to the gym. It hurts really bad at first, but after a couple of months and after that diet, you're looking so hot.

That's the message I want to give to every up-and-coming artist: Do everything that is going to help you later. If you clone somebody else, that's all they're gonna keep wanting from you.

I cannot save the world, that's not what I'm trying to do. I guess I'm just trying to walk the walk and be an example to those that want it. Not everybody does, but if Mary J Blige can come out of that same hole you were in, then you can do it too - that's my goal: to do that without saying it, but actually live it.

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.

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.

There's not enough time to be disrespecting... Life is too short.