When I decided to be a singer, my mother warned me I'd be alone a lot. Basically we all are. Loneliness comes with life.

I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside.

From the beginning, the camera and I were great friends. It loves me, and I love it.

My mother taught me that when you stand in the truth and someone tells a lie about you, don't fight it.

Nobody likes to be picked on. Nobody.

God gave me a voice to sing with, and when you have that, what other gimmick is there?

When I heard Aretha, I could feel her emotional delivery so clearly. It came from down deep within. That's what I wanted to do.

I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow; if I fail, or if I succeed at least I did as I believe.

I've turned down a lot of arena dates because I've done the big-arena thing. Now, I want to do something where people can feel me and I can feel them.

I almost wish I could be more exciting, that I could match what is happening out there to me.

I'm not crazy about arenas just because I can sell them out. It doesn't do anything for my ego at all. I want to play places where people don't have to sit in the nosebleed seats and wonder what the hell is going on.

I like being a woman, even in a man's world. After all, men can't wear dresses, but we can wear the pants.

No, I'm not a drug addict, and neither is my husband. If that were so, you'd get a lot less work out of me. It would show in the performances and in the work.

When I decided to be a singer, my mother warned me I'd be alone a lot. Basically we all are. Loneliness comes with life.

I finally faced the fact that it isn't a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.

I have priorities. Maintaining my daughter is my first.

I wanted to be a teacher. I love children, so I wanted to deal with children. Then I wanted to be a veterinarian. But by the age of ten or eleven, when I opened my mouth and said, 'Oh, God, what's this?' I kind of knew teaching and being a veterinarian were gonna have to wait.

I'm a person who has life and wants to live, and always have.

I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy.

I'm good where I am at this moment.

I'm just fiercely protective. It's like, that's my lair and nobody messes with my lair.

I'm older, I'm matured... I'm looking forward to the years to come. Good years.

I'm the kind of person, if, if I have a day that is nerve-wracking, or my week has been bad or something's going down, I won't eat. Some people eat, I don't eat. And it shows in my physical frame.

I've always been a thin girl. I'm not going to be fat, ever. Let's get that straight. Whitney is not going to be fat, ever. Okay?

I've got some good saints out there - that's right - that pray for me constantly. You've gotta have that! You do.

In grammar school some of the girls had problems with me. My face was too light. My hair was too long. It was the black-consciousness period, and I felt really bad.

Loneliness comes with life.

My daughter is my greatest inspiration.

My mother was the first singer I had contact with. She sang constantly to us around the house, in church.

No one makes me do anything I don't want to do.

When I decided to be a singer, my mother warned me I'd be alone a lot. Basically we all are.

You can fool people. You can fool anybody anytime of the day, but you can't fool yourself. At night, when you go home, you've got to be straight up with you.

I like being a woman even in a mans world. After all men cant wear dresses but we can wear the pants.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.