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.

It's OK showing yourself some love.

Sometimes I frown and I don't realise it.

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

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 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 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 never do any album to beat it. I do it to extend it.

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.

If we didn't have understanding of our journey, we wouldn't be able to go on. We'd be stuck, like, 'Why me?'

It was only for two years, and I jumped from family to family. It's very scary.

I just love food, period.

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

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

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 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 don't think I'll do foster care or adopt, to be quite honest.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

When I was a kid, I needed to sing because it makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel good, period.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I listen to gospel music.

My first album is playful.