It's a sweet thing, faith. With it, you can handle any circumstance, any crisis, because you know God always has your back. And when God is for you, who can be against you? Nobody. As my Aunt Hattie says, "One and God are a majority."

All I do is stay in the kitchen and cook. I don't go there to party.

In matters of the heart it is always better to want something you don't have than to have something you don't want.

So if diva means giving your best, then yes, I guess I am a diva.

Here's the thing about faith: It gives us the strength to go on when we want to give in. It gives us the courage to get up when we want to lie down. It gives us the power to make a way out of no way when there ain't no way. Just as love can't make you strong until love has made you weak, well, faith can't lift you up until life has knocked you down. With faith or without it, we can't stop the waves. But with it, we don't need to. Because with it we can ride the surf.

I'm 60, and I did 60-year-old women songs. I'm not trying to be the Hip-Hop Queen, although I am the original Hip Hop Queen.

I clean my house, although I have help. I'm on the floor getting spots. I can't stand a dirty house. I'm a cleaning fanatic.