Completeness? Happiness? These words don't come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me, particularly given my medical history.

You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.

I would say that my peak was making my first million at the ripe age of 29, after the first album.

Completeness? Happiness? These words don't come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me, particularly given my medical history.

Long tresses down to the floor can be beautiful, if you have that, but learn to love what you have.

Applause felt like approval, and it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily.

We don't do drugs, drink or use profanity. Instead we instill morals and values in my boys by raising them with a love of God and a love and respect for themselves and all people. I believe they will have a chance.

I don't let people use me. That's why I like a small number of people in my life. The more people in my life, the more complex it becomes, so I just try to keep it at a minimum.

I'm picking and choosing in terms of the stress factor. If it's not fun, I'm not going to do it.

As soon as you get off stage, that's the most dangerous time for a singer to kiss people because your vocal chords are receptive to any kind of germ.

Chris Brown is brilliant. That cat is crazy brilliant, and I wish him the best.

Historically, in my generation, all of my heroes and heroines have had issues and problems. We all do.

I don't think being black has held me back at all. Being black makes you strong.

I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress.

I need my career. That's what validates me.

I think there's no sacrifice too great for family, whether it's career, singing, whatever.

I used to sing at funeral homes for families that didn't have a vocalist. I didn't get paid. I needed to sing.

I would make far more money if every song were my own, but I don't write to fill up the album with my songs.

I'd love to be the political voice of my generation, but that's not my gift.

I'm used to getting up at 7, getting breakfast, getting the kids off to school, and doing the mommy thing and the wife thing and the daughter thing.

If I could be doing anything, I'd be laying on the floor in my birthday suit eating junk food and watching something dumb on TV.

If you have your own agenda and your own style and you don't easily conform to what the masses are doing, you're looked upon as being difficult. Whereas, I think of it as just being an individual.

It's impossible to write and produce a record when your parents are dying. I really tried, I really, really tried, but it just wouldn't come.

Most artists are notoriously insecure, and I fall into that category.

My father worked on assembly lines in Detroit while I was growing up. Every day, I watched him do what he needed to do to support the family. But he told me, 'Life is short. Do what you want to do.'

Oh my goodness, they are rocking so many variations of my high-top fade. I mean, Rihanna has taken it to a very angular 21st Century thing. Miss Fantasia has it in a very seductive, you know, up-flip, and it's just lovely, right? Oh, I think it's wonderful.

Time has nothing to do with the gifts that the gods give you; it's what you do.

You leave home to seek your fortune and when you get it you go home and share it with your family.

And rather than hide that, I would rather put that out on the radio and let someone see the full range of emotions. If you're going to be strong on the radio, you got to let it all out, even the ugly stuff. And you can't apologize for it.

Obviously, in dealing with a relationship, sexuality has to be involved, and jealousy and emotions like that. And I don't know, I've always been intrigued by those emotions.

Maybe I spent more time dwelling on emotions than some people, and maybe that's why I ended up writing.

In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

When on the set of a film, you have to play natural for entire scenes in a very unnatural environment. You have to express emotions and interact with other actors and also use your voice.

Emotions are the fuel to really move you along - that's the only way you can create music. If you don't feel any emotions, it's not going to happen.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

Most of the animated films I watched, the emotions are all prepackaged like canned music, the hand actions, the sighs.

I think actors always retain one foot in the cradle. We're switched on to our youth, to our childhood. We have to be because we're in the business of transferring emotions to other people.

Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

The name of Jesus, like a secret charm, awakened similar emotions in the hearts of all the converts, and called immediately into action every feeling of moral loveliness, and every desire of dutiful obedience, which constitute Christian purity.

Postmodernists believe that truth is myth, and myth, truth. This equation has its roots in pop psychology. The same people also believe that emotions are a form of reality. There used to be another name for this state of mind. It used to be called psychosis.

Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it's not change, it's partisanship. We don't need partisanship. We don't need demagoguery, we need solutions.

My weaknesses are my jumps. The reason is that although I land them in practice, when I actually compete or perform, I should let my body go and stabilize my mind better. Also, I need to work on not letting negative thoughts and emotions get to me on the ice.

The fact that biological, or "natural" rules might help in the creation of a computer generated work of art is interesting, but even a wonderful work of art made in this fashion isn't the same as a person, with all his or her experiences and emotions involved, making art.

The concept of reason itself appears as an artificial attempt to separate intellectual powers from the frustrations, emotions, and accidents which cause events; the concept of reason is viewed as facade to prevent change.

A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them. There is no such thing as bad art.

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.

When I say manage emotions, I only mean the really distressing, incapacitating emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes life rich. You need your passions.

A work of art is a world in itself reflecting senses and emotions of the artist's world.