Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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 would stay in my room for days, for days at times, just trying to get it together, to know what my next phase was going to be.
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?
Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. It's my decision. So the biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy.
Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. OK? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is whack.
Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.
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.
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.
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.
I've got a good man. He takes care of me. I don't have to be scared of anything because I know he will kick every ass... disrespect him and you've got a problem.
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.
Sometimes you'll laugh. Sometimes you'll cry. Life never tells us, the when's or why's. When you've got friends, to wish you well. You'll find your point when. You will exhale.
You get that love from the people. It lets me know that all the madness I go through, all the stuff that the business has to offer with all its madness; it makes it worthwhile.
You don't have a baby based on that publicity madness. People don't live like that. Especially black people who were raised in families with morals and standards and integrity.
I was aware of people staring at me. No one moved. They seemed almost in trance. I just stared at the clock in the center of the church. When I finished, everyone clapped and started crying.
Growing around great musicians, you just can't help it. I identified with it immediately. It was something that was so natural to me that when I started singing, it was almost like speaking.
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.
My mother sang with me in her stomach; I sang with Bobbi Kris in my stomach. I believe the child starts to develop within, and whatever you read, whatever you think, whatever you do affects the child.
I can tell you that I am not self-destructive. I'm not a person who wants to die. I'm a person who has life, who wants to live. And I always have. And I wouldn't mistake it for anything else other than that.
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 feel so blessed to just have done what I had done. To be able to just use what God has given me is a blessing. You know, never mind the Grammys, never mind the records, never mind all of that. Just to be able to sing.
I don't like it when they [media critics] see me as this little person who doesn't know what to do with herself -- like I have no idea what I want, like I'm just a puppet ... That's demeaning to me, because that ain't how it is, and it never was.
I know that I could really kill for my daughter. I know because I'm living for her, so I'm fierce when it comes down to it. And I feel the same about my husband and my family. I'm just fiercely protective. It's like, that's my lair and nobody messes with my lair.
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.
Sometimes you do have a good time. But when it gets to the point where you're sitting in your home and you're just trying to cover what you don't want people to know. It's painful. And then you want more just so that you don't let anybody see you cry. Or anybody to see we're not happy.
To learn your artistry and to be able to perfect that, is overwhelming. Especially when you are exuding love. The human emotion is a very delicate thing, so you have to be careful about how you present it because it can be kind of scary, or too overwhelming if you're not careful. So I try to just keep it love.
I've read about myself and my husband and my family, to the point where they've called my parents, they've called my brothers, offering money to tell stories. They call friends of mine. I'd just like for them to just ... don't badger us. Don't scrutinize us. We have children and they have to live, too. It's not fair.
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows. If I fail, if I succeed...At least I live as I believe. No matter what they take from me, They can't take away my dignity. Because the greatest love of all is happening to me. I found the greatest love of all inside of me. The greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to LOVE YOURSELf...It is the GREATEST love of all