I'm a person who has life and wants to live, and always have.

If you say my eyes are beautiful, it's because they are looking at you.

I feel so blessed to just have done what I had done. To be able to just use what God has given me is a blessing. You know, never mind the Grammys, never mind the records, never mind all of that. Just to be able to sing.

Sometimes you do have a good time. But when it gets to the point where you're sitting in your home and you're just trying to cover what you don't want people to know. It's painful. And then you want more just so that you don't let anybody see you cry. Or anybody to see we're not happy.

Loneliness comes with life.

In grammar school some of the girls had problems with me. My face was too light. My hair was too long. It was the black-consciousness period, and I felt really bad.

I would stay in my room for days, for days at times, just trying to get it together, to know what my next phase was going to be.