In some cases I feel like they haven't appreciated enough that growing up doesn't mean boring and old and not full of life. I like to talk about that also.

There's one more thing I want to say. It's a touchy subject. Black beauty. Black sensuality. We live in a culture where the beauty of black people isn't always as celebrated as other types. I'd like to help change that if I can!

When you're a girl, passion can dominate the equation, but as you grow up relationships evolve. Mad passion can grab you at first, but it can't last forever.

I used all that doubt as fuel for my own music, fuel for my drive to succeed.

The time was ripe for Flower. The vibe was right.

In some cases I feel like they haven't appreciated enough that growing up doesn't mean boring and old and not full of life. I like to talk about that also.

I'll put candles all over the room, then light then, and get to it. I call it my 'vibe in a bag.'

Flower was a good metaphor for growth. The song is obviously about sexual responsibility, so that was the main metaphor. Also, it's like knowing who someone has been and remembering and appreciating that, but really appreciating what they are now even more.

Maybe with your emotions and your feelings, someone else can say it in a different way than you would, which brings new life to the way you might sing it.

Eventually you can get into the nuts and bolts of reality: nurturing, caring, and getting along.

I always make this joke that I know you were expecting to see the big skirts and the hoops. But that was a long time ago. Artists aren't always seen as real people. If you start out as a teenager, sometimes people want to keep you locked as that. But I'm a woman now.

The music business is very hard on women over 22. You really have to prove yourself every time you make a record. Are you as vibrant as you used to be? Are you as sexy? So I really want to prove that a woman in her 30s can be all those things and more.

If I've learned anything in this business, it's that you have to be fearless.

Passion has always been important to me. That won't change. What changes in a woman's perspective. I mean, I have two kids now. I'm a single parent balancing motherhood and my career. That changes the equation.

Right now I'm single. Single, and loving it.

I wanted to do Playboy to get across the same ideas I'm singing and writing about these days. It's all about proving that a woman can defy stereotypes.

Don't wait on approval, validation and likes from others - always give yourself the highest of approval ratings and work from there. Hold your head up and be fabulous no matter what!

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys.

I didn't know I was a conservative when it didn't matter to me growing up.

My interests were in fantasy more than comics growing up.

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.

For me, the great problem growing up in England was that I had a very narrow concept of what God can be, and it was damn close to an old man with a beard.

David and Dad didn't get along too well growing up. I mean we all got along, but it was harder on David, because David wasn't going to be the son that Dad wanted. But now they're like best friends.

My lyrics come from my experiences growing up in life, trying to find out and express who I am. That's basically it. I'm not trying to be a prophet or anything like that. I'm just reflecting on life.

I was born in 1961. Now I think the 16 years that elapsed between 1961 and the end of the wars is nothing. To a child growing up it felt like an eternity, an entirely different world.

I was growing up listening to Queen. Freddie Mercury threw those incredible melodies into his songs.

Although I was not aware of it at the time, the experience of growing up during the Great Depression was to have a profound impact on my intellectual and professional career.

Growing up, mostly in Montreal, I was an only child of loving parents.

I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.

I don't mind snakes. Growing up in South Africa there were a couple a snakes around... and I'm not talking just about the government!

Growing up in public is especially hard sometimes.

You get used to sadness, growing up in the mountains, I guess.

I had a really bad temper, when I was growing up. Sport helped me channel that temper into more positive acts.

I think it would be very scary and very confusing if I didn't understand where people are coming from, but I've felt the exact same way for so many other bands, growing up. It's not really a big deal.

I don't think I ever set my goals that high. As a kid growing up I just wanted an opportunity to race and to be able to make a living doing it. It just came together.

I think the obvious answer is I was raised in New York City, so growing up, not only myself but my family, like my father, we would watch a lot of Scorsese films.

My father is a real idealist, and he's all about learning. If I asked for a pair of Nikes growing up, it was just a resounding 'No.' But if I asked for a saxophone, one would appear and next day and I'd be signed up for lessons. So anything to do with education or learning, my father would spare no expense.

Absolutely the worst thing about this job is the travel and being away from family. I have a wife and three wonderful children, the kids are all active in sports and it's very difficult to up and leave and miss them growing up.

There are things about growing up in a small town that you can't necessarily quantify.

I have the power of my height. Growing up, it was a total drawback. There was nothing good about it at all.

I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while.

Growing up, I've enjoyed hunting with my father.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

The openness of rural Nebraska certainly influenced me. That openness, in a way, fosters the imagination. But growing up, Lincoln wasn't a small town. It was a college town. It had record stores and was a liberal place.

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

I had a lot of growing up to do. A lot of times, I learned the hard way.

The first thing I think of when I hear the name of Lucille Ball is a Hollywood legend. I have fond memories of growing up at her house, but she was a different person off the set than she was on the set.

Everything changes as a mother. Yes, work has changed. The projects that I choose are even more important to me now. The world he's growing up in and the kind of stimulus that is out there; they are so precious and I'd do anything to protect him.