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'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.

My mother taught me that when you stand in the truth and someone tells a lie about you, don't fight it.

I wanted to be a teacher. I love children, so I wanted to deal with children. Then I wanted to be a veterinarian. But by the age of ten or eleven, when I opened my mouth and said, 'Oh, God, what's this?' I kind of knew teaching and being a veterinarian were gonna have to wait.

God gave me a voice to sing with, and when you have that, what other gimmick is there?

You can fool people. You can fool anybody anytime of the day, but you can't fool yourself. At night, when you go home, you've got to be straight up with you.

When I heard Aretha, I could feel her emotional delivery so clearly. It came from down deep within. That's what I wanted to do.