I want to be as healthy as I can because I'm a mom now.

I want to be a role model.

If I'm going for advice for anything in my life, I go straight to my father because he has the answers.

I can talk to my dad like he's my manager, and put 'Dad' on the back burner. We've been doing it since I was 13.

I'm spiritual.

I love religion.

You don't want to marry somebody who's just like you.

I collect lucky pennies that I find on the ground. I keep them in a Ziploc bag.

I am the first person to go to Barnes & Noble and buy the new self-help book. I like to fill out the surveys, then I get my friends' opinions on how I answered to see if I was being honest with myself or not.

I love my curves.

I always wonder if what I'm wearing will be something that people would compliment, or want to wear. I don't ever get ready just for myself, ever.

I never knew how protective I was until I had my own child. I'm already thinking about intruders coming into the house and what our escape route would be.

It's been hard, but I've finally come to the realization that it's okay to not be perfect.

I feel like everybody's always out to get me, and that's a weird feeling.

My family is my life, and I'll never lose that.

Music will always be my No. 1 passion, but I don't have to be doing it professionally. It's not really about that for me anymore. I feel like I don't have to look at it as a career. I can just rest in it and just be.

The great thing about Dallas is there's no paparazzi.

I think it's ironic that I fell in love with a man I thought I would never be interested in because he's an athlete. I was always, 'An athlete? Heck no.'

I can't deprive myself of things because then I obsess about it and end up eating.

When you grow up in the music industry, trying to be Britney Spears because that's what sells records and then you realize, 'All I have to do is be myself? I should have thought of that a long time ago,' it feels good to have success come from what's actually inside of you.

I'm very ditsy and a klutz. I've been known to walk on stage and fall over my dress.

I'm not that kind of publicity, attention-grabber type of artist.

I think anything sounds good with a Southern accent.

You're never going to look perfect to yourself even if you might look perfect to somebody else.

I have a huge rib cage, which is why I can hold a note out until I'm blue in the face... because I have such a big lung capacity.

I've come to realize that the more I censor myself, the less people relate to me.

To be a mentor for up-and-coming artists is right up my alley.

I really don't look at myself as just one thing. I'm kind of scattered and like to have my hands in a lot of different projects. It makes me who I am.

Image is the most important thing about someone's career and longevity.

I don't regret anything I've gone through.

I'm big-busted... I can't always wear the cutest bras, and it makes me so mad.

I'm never going to be a woman who doesn't work.

People always say that pregnant women have a glow. And I say it's because you're sweating to death.

I have a flirtatious personality.

Life is definitely always about expanding. That's how we grow.

I'm a woman who wants her chocolate.

Normally, I'm so shy.

I adore John Mayer. I don't see how anything that surrounds John could be negative.

As a woman who has some sort of power, you have to have a man that can take that. It's hard to find those men.

I really want to be just a singer-songwriter. That's who I am.

I think that having a public career is a bargain with the devil.

I don't ever wanna come across too intimidating, so as long as I look like you can come up and give me a hug, that's good.

I think Angelina Jolie has done amazing, amazing things, and the international adoption rate just since her has skyrocketed. It's unbelievable.

I don't even have a type! I don't have a physical type. I have an emotional type.

Get more confidence by doing things that excite and frighten you.

There's a really positive side of being an introvert - you really pick up on things a lot more than your extroverted counterparts.

For me, so far, confidence has been a journey, not a destination.

I'm a middle child, so I have middle-child syndrome. With a middle child, you always have to take in everything and adjust and maybe compromise a little bit so you're able to see both sides of an issue. I'm also a Leo - I love astrology - so that affected me, just being a lion.

Oftentimes, as women and women of color, we are put as supporting characters in other people's narratives. With 'Jessica James', she is the star of her own narrative.

I think we need to not speak over black women, not assign them labels.