"I want every day to be life for the living, not just traipsing through it existing. I'm just interested in life and the world and exploring."
"I've never wanted to be put into a box, not musically."
"There's the part of my life that the public and I share together. And there's the part that's mine to keep for myself. And that's mine. For me."
"I have a drum set in my dressing room. I play drums to relax and have some fun."
"When I was growing up, there were so many musicals you could watch. I like the fantasy of musicals and I love music."
"There are a lot of people who helped make Queen Latifah who she is today. I don't forget, but a lot of people do and get big heads. My mom will make me walk the dogs or take out the trash when I go home. I'm not allowed to get a big head; I've still got to do the simple things in life."
"The movie I've seen a million times is 'Steel Magnolias,' directed by Herbert Ross, starring Sally Field and Julia Roberts."
"Fear can be good when you're walking past an alley at night or when you need to check the locks on your doors before you go to bed, but it's not good when you have a goal and you're fearful of obstacles. We often get trapped by our fears, but anyone who has had success has failed before."
"There was always music in our home. My mom and my dad loved music. I remember when we were kids we would have these great parties at the house with congas and bongos and African drums, and it was amazing. It wasn't until years later that I found out that they were actually Black Panther meetings."
"I promised my mom that if, after a year of putting 150 percent into my career it didn't work out, I would go back to school. I never did go back."
"Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self."
"Lets be clear, Dolly Parton is a rapper. Somewhere before all the country, I don't know what happens up there in the mountains when you're growing up, but she has been spitting rhymes for a very long time - 50 years I'd say."
"I've loved car racing all my life. I watch NASCAR regularly, and drag racing because we have Raceway Park in New Jersey. I think I got it from my father."
"My mother wouldn't allow me to speak slang when I was growing up. But when I got outside, around my friends, it was 'Yo' and 'That's the joint' and 'Yo, what's up?' So I had my game for my friends and my game for my mom."
"Award shows, like the Grammys, were tough on us early in hip-hop, not even televising our categories or splitting them up on best male or female or any of that. We had to earn them."
"I've never been the straight rapper that is going to stand in a cipher and battle all day. I started off battle rapping, but to me, making songs became more important than freestyles... I've met many rappers who can freestyle but can't make a record."
"Racism is ignorant. And it's stupid. And it's old. And it's played out. So beat it already with that, you know what I mean? 'Let's all get along' - I'm so tired of that damn sentence, but it's true."
"Anyone who knows me knows that I'm way more of a joker than I am a serious person."
"When I'm doing something I love, I can lose sleep. I can go and go and go and go. My work ethic is pretty intense. But when it comes to doing something that I don't love every day, I'm not very good at it. That's called work, and I don't like work that much."
"I know a lot of people who really aren't beautiful because their attitudes are very nasty... Whether I make the 50 most beautiful list or not, I'm always going to feel like I'm number one most beautiful to myself... I get that from my mom, and my daddy and my friends who raised me."
"Church was a requirement - there was no choice in the matter; so was vacation bible school. Gospel has been in me since I was a kid."
"How many crossroads are you allowed to have in life? I seem to have a lot of crossroads. I think maybe I crossed back across the same road too often."
"I do feel like I have a direct connection with God for some reason; always have since I was a little kid - I would talk to God, talk to the sky."
"I think as far as the music industry is concerned, it's kind of been the wild, wild West in a way with the Internet, which is not necessarily a bad thing to me."
"A confident woman is a sexy woman, in my opinion. And I think guys find that to be the same way."
