“I am focused on the work. I am constantly creating. I am a busy girl. I live and breathe my work. I love what I do. I believe in the message. There's no stopping. I didn't create the fame, the fame...”

“Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love yo...”

“Love is like a brick. You can build a house, or you can sink a dead body.”

“Well my music was different in high school; I was singing about loveyou know, things I don't care about anymore.”

“All that ever holds somebody back, I think, is fear. For a minute I had fear. [Then] I went into the [dressing] room and shot my fear in the face...”

“It doesn't matter who you are, or where you come from, or how much money you've got in your pocket. You have your own destiny and your own life ahead of you.”

“A true success is when you become a reason for a Smile on their face.”

“You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.”

“You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.”

“I'm thinking about the cat dying, Dulcie and her knife against my throat, Mrs Irvin and her St Thomas bone... But never my sister. A brother rarely thinks about his sister.”

“I was tired of her getting away with being so young.”

“My sister is my little star, and I'm excited for her and proud of her. With her, I'm protective, but also I don't want to be that sister who's really pushy and thinks they know everything and makin...”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”