Mary J. Blige Quotes

The only person that I'm really feeling - because she has an identity of her own, even though she has listened to Mary J. Blige - is Jill Scott.

If you're looking for inner peace from the outside world, you're not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside. Understanding that everything that comes to you is what you are. Everything from friends to boyfriends to the job you get - it's all a direct reflection of what you are on the inside.

It hurts a lot when you cannot really comprehend what a person is saying in a meeting, or you don't even understand what you're reading in your contract.

I'm my worst critic, and I like the fact that I can listen to myself now and make fun of myself, listen, make changes - 'Oh, man, that's messed up. Okay, I need to work on that; I need to work on this.'

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.

Growing up, I was the preferred hairstylist for all of my friends.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The streets respect me because I kept it real with me. You gotta be real with yourself, and the streets recognize game.

We are all just a work in progress.

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.

The fact is that everyone at the labels wants to do what everyone else is doing. You have to look like her; you have to be like her; you have to sing like her, and no one can express themselves. I look at Rihanna and I am so proud of her. She speaks loudly! You have to stand up and clap. She expresses herself through fashion. She actually can sing. And her songs mean something, even to me, you know?

You can look at my palm and see the storm coming. Read the book of my life and see I've overcome it.

We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.

Life is full of trials and tribulations. It's dramatic when you don't treat people right when you're in the tribulations, but I know now how to get out of it. You have to make a decision to say 'No more', and then you know what to do when the trials happen.

I believe there are certain things that God uses to get us out of a bad situation, and I believe music was one of the things he used for me.

The younger Mary J. Blige, I would call her, she was very unaware, ignorant.

By the time I was a teenager, when I went outside the house, it was about hip-hop all the time. Nothing but hip-hop, block parties.

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 was only for two years, and I jumped from family to family. It's very scary.

Thank you so much for supporting me from the day I stepped foot into the music industry. It really means something to me to have Maya Angelou speak on my behalf. It also means a lot to have Oprah on my speed dial!

As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me - Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.

I believe there should be no more drama, but it's everywhere you go. It's just about how you get out. You've gotta bob and weave because it's everywhere. How do I keep the drama low? It's about using your head.

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.

Working in the studio is a more personal experience whereas on stage in front of a billion people, its more exciting performing live.

I just want fans to walk away knowing that no matter what's going on, no matter how happy you are, no matter how sad you are, we did it. We're strong in this. We've come a long way, and life is not just one thing.

You know a lot, but you don't know everything.

I can go out raw with nothing, and my fans would still be happy, but I feel that I owe it to them to give them almost like a Broadway musical at this point in my life. I have to give them something more, so I do have to think of different ways to do it.

Once you climb to another level, you have to figure out how to sustain it.

I've been a tomboy my whole life. But then you get older, you get married, you soften up.

One day I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere by blaming other people for my circumstances. I finally understood: Even if you feel someone has wronged you or owes you something, no one is going to give you anything for free.

I do consider myself part of black history.

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.

If we didn't have understanding of our journey, we wouldn't be able to go on. We'd be stuck, like, 'Why me?'

I wish I had an extra day with my mom sometimes. Or another hour in the day with my family, husband and children.

I care about me now. When I didn't care about me, I was, like, 'Why is this going wrong? Why is my life so bad?' But when you don't care about yourself, nobody else is going to care about you. So I learned to love myself, even if nobody else does.

You have to create different things, either through lighting or changing the format of the songs and how you're going to sing them, and even sometimes props.

You have to have a plan. Everything has to be planned. For me, I start with the title of my album, before I even start with the songs. I write down different things that I want album to say, and then the songs come from the different words.

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.

I'm hoping that my entrepreneurial side will have me at a place where I don't have to do anything. That's what I'm striving for.

The music business is really, really small. The real music is becoming almost extinct, if you don't stay true to who you are.

'My Life' is soft, with notes of pear and gardenia, but still bold, with a woody base.

I don't know what kind of God the rest of y'all are serving, but the God I serve says, 'Mary, you need to be the hottest thing this year, and I'm gonna make sure you're doing that.'

It's sad that a lot of identities are lost and a lot of careers are lost because there's sort of a clone thing going on.

I'm a child of God. God is my mommy, my daddy. That's the only thing that'll keep my head up. If I don't remember who I am in him, I'm done.