I'm very spontaneous.

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.

Although individual temperaments vary, boys are designed to be more assertive, audacious, and excitable than girls are.

But then it hasn't really been a focus of our government to make us an educated people.

There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.

There's a higher form of happiness in commitment. I'm counting on it.

I thought that I wrote songs and wrote music, and that was sort of what I thought I was best at doing. And because nobody else was ever doing my songs, I felt - you know, I had to go out and do them.

Our pleasures were simple - they included survival.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.

Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender.

You were born to be real, not perfect.

What was new was the symbolic force of the targets struck. The attackers did not just physically cause the highest buildings in Manhattan to collapse; they also destroyed an icon in the household imagery of the American nation.

Most of us actually stifle enough good impulses during the course of a day to change the current of our lives.

It doesn't matter what people think of me. I've lived my life.

Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.

The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf's a flower.

God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency.

It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.

I prefer to speak of 'interdimensionals' rather than 'extraterrestrials' because the latter has connotations of 'little green men' and all the other cliche responses. Nor does it tell the full story.

But I had two very special people who helped to take my style to the next level. Thank God for my first MC Cowboy and my first student Grand Wizard Theodore, and to go out after creating this art form and finding everyone jamming to it - that too was pretty scary.

I think I sound like Barry White.

A chunk of seared albacore tuna, salted and peppered, then seared rare in a little oil in a hot skillet for just a minute or so per side, is the perfect addition to a savory plate of fried rice. Just slice the tuna across the grain and fan those mild, meaty slices over the top of the rice.

An Op-Ed by a Republican criticizing the Democrats, or vice versa, is easy to come by and not that interesting. But a Democrat who takes issue with his or her party, or a Republican who does that, is more valuable.