In the studio you can really concentrate on performing the song where as on stage you also have to worry about connecting with so many people, they're definitely different.

I felt ashamed about everything. Me dropping out of high school, me not, you know, just not being beautiful enough. I just didn't feel like I was smart enough or beautiful enough, you know, for years.

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

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.

There are people out there who want to provoke me and bring back the old Mary but I'm not giving them the satisfaction.

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.

From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business I couldn't see that.