Mary J. Blige
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.
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!
I don't think I'll do foster care or adopt, to be quite honest.
It was only for two years, and I jumped from family to family. It's very scary.
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.
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.
When I was a child I didn't care about getting an education, and I didn't finish high school.
I wouldn't adopt, but what I will do is give my time and go and try to be there for people.
You know a lot, but you don't know everything.
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.
'My Life' is not an autobiography. It's just music.
It's OK showing yourself some love.
I was inspired to create 'My Life' so I could finally share a personal part of my life beyond my music.
The important thing is to realize that no matter what people's opinions may be, they're only just that - people's opinions. You have to believe in your heart what you know to be true about yourself. And let that be that.Collection: Believe
We are all just a work in progress.Collection: Progress
Negative words are powerful boomerangs so be careful what you say about people and yourself.Collection: Powerful
If you're looking for inner peace from the outside world, you're not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside.Collection: Inner Peace
For the first time in my life, I'm proud of myselfCollection: I Like You
You have to have a plan. Everything has to be planned. For me, I start with the title of my album, before I even start with the songs. I write down different things that I want album to say, and then the songs come from the different words.Collection: Song
If you're looking for inner peace from the outside world, you're not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside. Understanding that everything that comes to you is what you are. Everything from friends to boyfriends to the job you get - it's all a direct reflection of what you are on the inside.Collection: Jobs
It's up to us to choose whether we win or lose...and I choose to win.Collection: Winning
The only person that I'm really feeling - because she has an identity of her own, even though she has listened to Mary J. Blige - is Jill Scott.Collection: Feelings
Don't go a full day or night without washing your face. You have to get all the dirt and makeup out of your pores.Collection: Makeup
The music business is really, really small. The real music is becoming almost extinct, if you don't stay true to who you are.Collection: Real
When I`m going to do a Christmas album I had to put my mind in Christmas mode. I had to go back to being a child and remembering all of that. When I go to do a project, I'm serious about it, so I wrap my world around it, and it becomes Christmastime for me and I'm singing songs like it's Christmas day.Collection: Song
When you're going to do whatever you're going to do, you have to get your, put your mind into it.Collection: Mind
People in my neighborhood inspired me to sing. Believe in your ability no matter what, but be realistic with yourself and your ability.Collection: Believe
It's sad that a lot of identities are lost and a lot of careers are lost because there's sort of a clone thing going on.Collection: Careers
The streets respect me because I kept it real with me. You gotta be real with yourself, and the streets recognize game.Collection: Real
Love is wonderful, amazing, and the best thing that can happen to us.Collection: Love Is
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.Collection: Goal
When I was five years old I was molested and just, you know. I remember feeling, literally right before it happened, I just could not believe that this person was going to do this to me. That thing followed me all my life. The shame of thinking my molestation was my fault - it led me to believe I wasn't worth anything.Collection: Believe
That's the message I want to give to every up-and-coming artist: Do everything that is going to help you later. If you clone somebody else, that's all they're gonna keep wanting from you.Collection: Artist
My responsibility to God is to live. That's the gift he gave me. What I do with it is up to me.Collection: Responsibility
I mean, I know my heart is not clean, and your heart is not clean, and none of our urban hearts are clean. But you can be washed again.Collection: Heart
As far as men go, they never gave me a chance to be me; they were always scared that somebody was going to take me.Collection: Men
Cause I'm no better than you, you, or you. And I can't get on no throne and preach, 'cause I'm not God.Collection: Thrones
In your life there's peaks and valleys and sometimes we regress, and we don't even know we regress. You just have to learn how to accept all of your mistakes and learn to love yourself again.Collection: Mistake
No one compares to you. Just remember that. There's no one out there - there's only one of you, and that's it. And whatever you believe about you that's great, no one else has it. And I can't look like you, there's no way I can slip into your body and be you, and you can't slip into my body and be me. This is all we're gonna get.Collection: Believe
It's that first step-getting out the door-that's the toughest. If you can do that, you've already won.Collection: Doors
I don't want no drama in my life, even though we have a little bit, but no more letting people control you. That's drama, because then you become something that you're not.Collection: Drama
I blame my mother for nothing, but forgive her for everything.Collection: Inspirational
God loves me and sent his son to die for me so I have to live to please him because he saved me when everyone abandoned me.Collection: Son
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.Collection: Thinking
I've learned so much from all my mistakes. I just wish I had gotten my education.Collection: Mistake
...I would be a liar and my fans would hate me if I said to them, 'Oh, we're perfect and everything is great.' We have situations just like everyone else. We're not out in public trying to kill each other, but it's real. We love each other.Collection: Hate
You have to create different things, either through lighting or changing the format of the songs and how you're going to sing them, and even sometimes props.Collection: Song
I think everyone should understand history of segregation the same way we had to go to school and read about George Washington. I believe this generation should know their history and they should know that the struggle's not over yet. For instance, you can't get the cover of a magazine if your skin is too dark.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Girl