“As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me - Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.”

“As a kid, I dreamed about being onstage.”

“As a kid, I was in love with Michael Jackson, and I just knew I was going to marry him someday.”

“As long as I live, I know I'll have feelings. And that's what I'm passionate about.”

“Believe in yourself when nobody else does.”

“By the time I was a teenager, when I went outside the house, it was about hip-hop all the time. Nothing but hip-hop, block parties.”

“Don't give up, be positive and if you know someone who knows someone at a record company don't stop beating down their door till you get heard. Don't ever say it'll never happen or it'll never happen.”

“Even if you feel someone has wronged you or owes you something, no one is going to give you anything for free.”

“For the first time in my life, I'm proud of myself.”

“From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business, I couldn't see that.”

“God comes first - if I don't love him, I can't love anybody, and if I can't love me I can't love nobody.”

“I always want to be a messenger, a person that, you know, that's not afraid to pass on wisdom.”

“I barely have time for my own children. To adopt more children and not have time for them, that would be poor parenting on my part.”

“I believe there are certain things that God uses to get us out of a bad situation, and I believe music was one of the things he used for me.”

“I believe there should be no more drama, but it's everywhere you go. It's just about how you get out. You've gotta bob and weave because it's everywhere. How do I keep the drama low? It's about using your head.”

“I believe this generation should know their history and they should know that the struggle's not over yet.”

“I can go out raw with nothing, and my fans would still be happy, but I feel that I owe it to them to give them almost like a Broadway musical at this point in my life. I have to give them something more, so I do have to think of different ways to do it.”

“I can have as many bad days as anyone. But I choose to say, 'I'm just fine.'”

“I can see the music. I know what it looks like. I know what color it is. The words come easy, the tears come easy, and the joy comes easy. The music tells you what to do.”

“I can tell you I didn't feel good when I could not articulate properly. Getting my GED was important and I want other women to feel that.”

“I cannot save the world; that's not what I'm trying to do. I guess I'm just trying to walk the walk and be an example to those that want it. Not everybody does, but if Mary J. Blige can come out of that same hole you were in, then you can do it, too - that's my goal: to do that without saying it, but actually live it.”

“I can't just make a song people can dance in a club to... it still has to be real.”

“I care about me now. When I didn't care about me, I was, like, 'Why is this going wrong? Why is my life so bad?' But when you don't care about yourself, nobody else is going to care about you. So I learned to love myself, even if nobody else does.”

“I didn't know how to show my self love, and I didn't want anyone else to hurt me. So my tough girl attitude was like, 'I'm not having it.'”

“I do consider myself part of black history.”

“I don't have any health problems, but to keep your health improves your quality of life.”

“I don't know. Only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins. It's up to us to choose, whether we win or lose and I choose to win.”

“I don't listen to people's opinions. I have people around me who I can trust, but most of all I listen to myself.”

“I don't think there's anything they can say about me that I haven't said about myself already. And I would be an absolute total liar, and my fans would not respect me, if I said that my life and my marriage are perfect. But we absolutely love each other; we have fun together - it's great.”

“I felt ashamed about everything. Me dropping out of high school, me not, you know, just not being beautiful enough. I just didn't feel like I was smart enough or beautiful enough, you know, for years.”

“I grew up watching MTV, when Journey was huge, when Pat Benatar had 'Love Is a Battlefield,' and my friends and I used to cut school to watch this woman in the video. We loved Pat Benatar.”

“I had to learn how to trust my gut. Trust what I know to be right... not right, but not waver on who I am. Know who I am, know what I want, and know it. Not waver on it and be secure in that. And I still struggle with it. But I really... I can't be moved. You can't move me, and that all comes with loving myself, and I'm like my best buddy.”

“I hated myself for so many reasons, and I thought so many things were my fault that happened to me growing up.”

“I have to have lemon and honey. I have to have apple cider vinegar, Braggs. And I have to have either Red Vines or Twizzlers. These things, you know, are the things that help my vocal performance.”

“I just want fans to walk away knowing that no matter what's going on, no matter how happy you are, no matter how sad you are, we did it. We're strong in this. We've come a long way, and life is not just one thing.”

“I know who I am. I am not perfect. I'm not the most beautiful woman in the world. But I'm one of them.”

“I like French fries; I like mashed. I love potatoes.”

“I like hanging out with me, and I've accepted everything about me good, bad whatever it is. That's why I'm able to, that's why no one can tell me anything negative about myself.”

“I like to do interior design, I love to quilt, I love to see different colors together, and I love to match things up.”

“I listen to gospel music.”

“I remember a time when all my fans were crying and sad and going through hell. Now, we're trying to uplift each other and accept ourselves for who we are, even if nobody else does.”

“I still get nervous about singing. I drink tea with honey and lemon before every concert. And I need to have scented candles in all of my hotel rooms.”

“I suffered from self hatred so much. It's like I didn't want to look like that any more. I didn't to feel like that any more. It had to be another way.”

“I used to think I was ugly. I thought I looked like a camel. A person who doesn't love themselves, they will see anything that pops up on their face. I've seen squirrels, I've seen a bird, and I've seen all kinds of animals on my face. But that is the result of self-hate. I've learned to say: 'You know what? I am a beautiful black woman'.”

“I wish I had an extra day with my mom sometimes. Or another hour in the day with my family, husband and children.”

“I wish I had known that education is the key. That knowledge is power. Now I pick up books and watch educational shows with my husband. I'm seeing how knowledge can elevate you.”

“If I'm going to be the best in what I do, I have to study what I'm doing, I have to see what I'm doing. I have to see it, I have to hear it. I'm just starting to appreciate myself - not starting, but appreciating myself in a way where I can look at myself back in a movie or listen to myself as much as I do now.”

“If you're here right now in your life, your journey continues and you've lived to tell the story.”

“If you're not confident in yourself, you're going to waver. I've wavered, and I've lost.”

“I'm a child of God. God is my mommy, my daddy. That's the only thing that'll keep my head up. If I don't remember who I am in him, I'm done.”

“I'm a singer who thinks like a rapper.”

“I'm from the element of the streets that says that once you've made it, it's yours. But keep it to yourself.”

“I'm my worst critic, and I like the fact that I can listen to myself now and make fun of myself, listen, make changes - 'Oh, man, that's messed up. Okay, I need to work on that; I need to work on this.'”

“I'm on my way to a place where I'd never dreamed I'd be, and that's perfection.”

“In the inner city, there's a mentality that the government owes you something. My breakthrough came when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and took responsibility for every part of my life. No more pity parties. I've gotta love me more than anybody else loves me.”

“It hurts a lot when you cannot really comprehend what a person is saying in a meeting, or you don't even understand what you're reading in your contract.”

“It hurts when you have to smile and you don't want to smile, but the best thing to do is to smile.”

“It's challenging to find an identity as a young person if you don't have the sustenance of love, because you're being shipped around.”

“It's not just songs and glamour. It's sweat, blood, broken toes, and mistakes... It's life.”

“It's OK showing yourself some love.”

“I've been a tomboy my whole life. But then you get older, you get married, you soften up.”

“I've been praying to God to show me how to forgive myself. Because... maybe... that's the thing I've been searching for.”

“I've done well, I've been disappointed, and I think it all goes back to you. Of course the labels are going to be the labels. It's the music business. You are a business. That's what they do. So you've got to protect yourself.”

“Just don't let the hype of what people are saying and how much they love you, y'know, just take the compliment and be thankful that people are complimenting you, but don't let it consume you; don't let your circumstances around you and the way people view you make you act a certain way.”

“Life is full of trials and tribulations. It's dramatic when you don't treat people right when you're in the tribulations, but I know now how to get out of it. You have to make a decision to say 'No more', and then you know what to do when the trials happen.”

“Music makes us want to live. You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has.”

“My first album is playful.”

“My God is a God who wants me to have things. He wants me to bling. He wants me to be the hottest thing on the block.”

“My journey continues, because I've, you know, conquered a lot. And I know how to conquer the rest.”

“'My Life' is not an autobiography. It's just music.”

“'My Life' is soft, with notes of pear and gardenia, but still bold, with a woody base.”

“My main exercise is cardio. The treadmill is fine, but running outdoors gives me the best results. I try to log 6 to 8 miles a week. I could be in the worst mood, but when I do my cardio, I feel much, much better.”

“My responsibility to God is to live. That's the gift he gave me.”

“No one intimidates me because I'm not trying to do what you do, because I can't do what you do. I can only do what Mary J. Blige can do, so that relaxes me right there, and it gets me out of the competition and that whole thing.”

“Nowadays, with the state of the music business, for any artist, whether you're up-and-coming or you've been in it for awhile, you have to explore different revenues and different ways of expressing yourself.”

“Once you climb to another level, you have to figure out how to sustain it.”

“One day I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere by blaming other people for my circumstances. I finally understood: Even if you feel someone has wronged you or owes you something, no one is going to give you anything for free.”

“People know what they see but they don't know what's happening inside. If you want to know who you are and how you feel about yourself, take a look at your environment.”

“Really, every woman is an example to me, because as women we go through so much pain. We have to live this perfect life when we are messed up inside. We all go through trials and tribulations.”

“So as long as I'm a human being and I'm not perfect, I'm able to say I'm having some growing pains. Because in order to sustain where you are once you made such a breakthrough that everyone is looking at you, now everyone is like, 'Ooh, is she gonna make a mistake?' Yes, I'm going to make a mistake. Yes, I'm still gonna do things.”

“Sometimes I frown and I don't realise it.”

“Thank you so much for supporting me from the day I stepped foot into the music industry. It really means something to me to have Maya Angelou speak on my behalf. It also means a lot to have Oprah on my speed dial!”

“The music business is not a good place for people who don't know things.”

“The younger Mary J. Blige, I would call her, she was very unaware, ignorant.”

“There are people out there who want to provoke me and bring back the old Mary but I'm not giving them the satisfaction.”

“There's not enough time to be disrespecting... Life is too short.”

“There's so many things that life is, and no matter how many breakthroughs, trials will exist and we're going to get through it. Just be strong.”

“This music business can suck all the love out of you, all the compassion for people - you can start to think you're better than them. But I want to continue to let people know that I'm no better and no worse, I'm just like you.”

“When I was a child I didn't care about getting an education, and I didn't finish high school.”

“When life is real, it's not going to be smooth.”

“When someone comes up to me and says, 'Mary, you helped save my marriage', or, 'Mary, you helped me get out of this abusive relationship', I'm in it, really in their lives. And I'm so passionate about my feelings, but also about showing people the way through theirs.”

“When you come from so many damaged places you don't ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.”

“When you finally understand who you are, ages 6 through 60 will understand who you are. Because when they see a person that's come through all that I've come through, still standing, it's amazing.”

“When you hold on to anger and unforgiveness, you can't move forward.”

“When you know what pain is, and when you have to make a choice, you learn that it is a decision. People think it's a fairytale thing, love and happiness, but you have to work hard. And then - you feel it deeply.”

“When you tell your truth, you are coming from a real place, so you are automatically a leader.”

“When you wake up and learn to love yourself and want to take care of yourself, things are harder because people don't like the idea of it. But when you get in trouble, it gives people things to talk about.”

“Without your health, everything else means nothing.”

“You can hate me. You can go out there and say anything you want about me, But you will love me later because I told you the truth.”

“You can look at my palm and see the storm coming. Read the book of my life and see I've overcome it.”

“You can't get around pain and opposition, but you can try to be joyful in the trial, and thank yourself for the trial, and thank God for the strength to get through it.”

“You demand respect and you'll get it. First of all, you give respect.”

“You either learn from your experiences or go back and do the same thing, and I learned from my experiences.”

“You know a lot, but you don't know everything.”