I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy.

I'm the kind of person, if, if I have a day that is nerve-wracking, or my week has been bad or something's going down, I won't eat. Some people eat, I don't eat. And it shows in my physical frame.

Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.

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 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.

I don't like it when they [media critics] see me as this little person who doesn't know what to do with herself -- like I have no idea what I want, like I'm just a puppet ... That's demeaning to me, because that ain't how it is, and it never was.

I wish to you, joy and happiness. But above all this, I wish you love