A diva is someone who is a perfectionist, who does her best in her craft.

People with no humor, they're outta my life.

When I look into the crowd, I see young and old, black and white - it's amazing that I'm able to connect with so many different kinds of people.

I keep showing decade after decade that I am a real performer.

I'll perform all the way to the grave.

I love Canadians because I don't see very much racism in Canada.

I can't do some of the songs that younger girls like Mary J. Blige and Beyonce are doing. They have their own place and I have my own place.

I never thought I would be singing for the world.

You don't have to be an angel, just be someone who can give.

I'm 60, and I did 60-year-old women songs. I'm not trying to be the Hip-Hop Queen, although I am the original Hip Hop Queen.

I'm very shy in a crowd.

I just sing the stuff that makes me smile, makes me feel like I didn't sell myself out.

You've got to know business before you go to show business.

I was very shy. I'm still shy.

So if diva means giving your best, then yes, I guess I am a diva.

I'm very spontaneous.

Women are dominating the charts, and women are doing it for themselves. We're kicking butt and taking no prisoners.

So if anybody wants to get me something, get me 60 crabs - one for each year. I don't want no diamonds, I don't want no shoes, I don't want no party. I want some crabs.

All I can tell you really is if you get to the point where someone is telling you that you are not great or not good enough, just follow your heart and don't let anybody crush your dream.

I'm no different than you.

I've had 60 years of ups and downs, and all of the downs that I've had, I'm happy that I've had them because it's taught me to appreciate all the ups.

A diva is someone who is a perfectionist, who does her best in her craft.

I was a shy kid with a broom handle that I pretended was a microphone.

I don't feel as though I have to prove anything to anybody.

I have to go 150 percent or nothing at all.

I decided to always sing in the back with the chorus and never went up front because I had trouble performing.

I truly respect the people who are working. If they want an autograph from Patti LaBelle, they are going to get it. I have never separated myself from them. I never think you are better than the next one.

The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of ourselves.

Health is the ability to be fully and consciously aware of all that contributes to your life experience and to effectively exist in that environment. It then means you see yourself as you really are.

And it was back in the mid-1980s, and as I point out in a piece, that was when we are spending about eight percent of our gross domestic product on health care. And even then, we had the impression that so much of the excessive, aggressive medical treatment that took place at the end of life was not only unnecessary but it was cruel.

Cheerleaders are angels were the only humans who can fly.

The biggest benefit of Apollo was the inspiration it gave to a growing generation to get into science and aerospace.

If you've been working since you were a teenager and working at a reasonably decent level, then you don't expect that you're going to be firmly in your 40s and start moving up in the world, if you like.

Sex in the City was a different kind of phenomenon because of the show itself is a phenomenon and to me that's successful because to resonate with women across the board for six years and have only one African-American actor pass through for one episode.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

The masses don't shed their blood for the benefit of a few individuals.

Let's not strive to be successful at work; instead let's strive to be valuable and then everything else will fall into place super quick.

I had a lot of friends in high school who said, 'Louie, I don't care what the government does as long as they leave me alone.' Well, guess what, when you don't care what the government does, it does not leave you alone.

At the end of the competition, I played the Liszt concerto and I felt my head was on the block. Well, I won.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

Yeah, I could go rock on the back porch and do crossword puzzles - but I've got six kids, ages 9 to 16, and someone in the family should work. That's me.

I can't write unless I'm overlooking water.

People say their weight is genetic. But it turns out that people who are overweight don't just have overweight kids. They also have overweight pets. That's not genetic.

It really is no different in the way that we make records and shoot music videos. I don't think of the movie as being a great leap out of my current profession.

Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load.

'Moonlight' is a project that resonated with me more than anything else. I wouldn't have done 'Luke Cage' if they hadn't made time for 'Moonlight.'

The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo.

What you are prepared to do in order to achieve what you want is the only cost involved in achieving that goal.

When I was a boy in the 1930s the carbon dioxide level was still below 300 parts per million. This year it reached 382 the highest figure for hundreds of thousands of years.