I've always struggled so much just to appreciate myself.

You know, it's just tough to get together and do work with somebody.

I love to sing. It's the easiest thing for me to do.

I mean, I'm not unhappy, but there's still so much I want to do.

In my thirties, I felt I had hold of one of the reins some of the time.

Being a singer is a way for me to get to a platform to do more.

Getting a degree, being on Sesame Street... those were like real accomplishments to me.

But really, we also need to learn how to love one another as women. How to appreciate and respect each other.

Walking through this life really is walking through fire.

I remember seeing the movie 'To Sir With Love' when I was a little girl.

Well. I'm probably not loving myself like I should, but I'm really trying.

I like to work spontaneously.

Everyone in my family sang, and we would always sing these songs.

To me, this degree was an acknowledgment of my work in music.

When I was in my twenties, it felt like I was riding wild horses, and I was hoping I didn't go over a cliff.

My philosophy is familiarity breeds contempt.

I'd been in a vicious cycle and circle of people and couldn't see my way out. So I picked myself up one day about 15 years ago and moved where I didn't know anyone.

I've always struggled so much just to appreciate myself.

I'd like to work on putting art programs back in schools.

There are a lot of people I would have liked to have collaborated with, and would still like to.

One of the album's songs features Mary J. Blige, but I don't want to talk too much about it yet. I think you will hear the music that's been playing in my head when it comes out.

If I love a song, I make it mine.

I think the whole reason for my life is in there somewhere.

I think we spent 60-something million on 'Hateful Eight,' which is actually more than I wanted to spend, but we had weather problems. And I wanted to make it good.

I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived and painted.

If you can visualize the whole of spring and see Paradise with the eye of belief, you may understand the utter majesty of everlasting Beauty. If you respond to that Beauty with the beauty of belief and worship, you will be a most beautiful creature.

I believe in eating as nutritiously as I can all the time... My mother raised me on fresh - rather than processed - foods, and that's how I eat on a regular basis.

I make a movie because it's something that inspires me.

You always want to be on top of the playbook. You always want to be refreshed with the plays, make sure you're on the same page with everyone else.

It was treacherous. I think someone was injured. But I did love being there, we all did.

At one point, I recognized that Warren Buffett, though he had every advantage in learning from Ben Graham, did not copy Ben Graham but, rather, set out on his own path and ran money his way, by his own rules... I also immediately internalized the idea that no school could teach someone how to be a great investor.

The Pilgrim and the Puritan whom we honor tonight were men who did a great deal of work in the world. They had their faults and their - shortcomings, but they were not slothful in business and they were most fervent in spirit.

Home - that blessed word, which opens to the human heart the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and helps to carry it thither, as on an angel's wings.

I've always thought you have to live life looking forwards, not backwards. I've had no interest at all in who my ancestors are.

Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is. People lose their capacity to walk, run, travel, think, and experience life. I realise how important it is to use the time I have.

Help the man-in-the-street make sense of the bewildering.

We will downsize the government, motivate excess employees to become entrepreneurs, and increase the pay of a lean and mean bureaucracy.

I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research.

One may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions.

I don't read reviews. I find them very distracting, whether they're good or bad.

If I'm not doing anything, I get really antsy and bored.

Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.

After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

It's nice to be able to engage with this fan base that I've worked to build, brick by brick.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

People can't live on $7.50 an hour.

I'm in touch with the social networks and stuff.