Mary J. Blige Quotes

I'm a singer who thinks like a rapper.

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

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.

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

Love is wonderful, amazing, and the best thing that can happen to us.

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 don't have any health problems, but to keep your health improves your quality of life.

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

The streets respect me because I kept it real with me. You gotta be real with yourself, and the streets recognize game.

I like French fries; I like mashed. I love potatoes.

As a kid, I dreamed about being onstage.

My responsibility to God is to live. That's the gift he gave me.

I've been a tomboy my whole life. But then you get older, you get married, you soften up.

I'm on my way to a place where I'd never dreamed I'd be, and that's perfection.

I'm striving toward this acting thing. I'm definitely gonna work hard on that, whatever comes my way, I'm gonna work hard on it.

You either learn from your experiences or go back and do the same thing, and I learned from my experiences.

The music business is really, really small. The real music is becoming almost extinct, if you don't stay true to who you are.

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

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

When I was little, like 7 to 15, there was nothing I wanted to do but go to church and go to school.

I didn't know how to show my self love, and I didn't want anyone else to hurt me. So my tough girl attitude was like, 'I'm not having it.'

I didn't never have to go to a therapist. I just always put it in a song and you heard me.

It hurts when you have to smile and you don't want to smile, but the best thing to do is to smile.

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

'My Life' is not an autobiography. It's just music.

You can hate me. You can go out there and say anything you want about me, But you will love me later because I told you the truth.

I like what I see when I'm looking at me when I'm walking past the mirror,

My God is a God who wants me to have things. He wants me to bling. He wants me to be the hottest thing on the block.

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

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

I believe this generation should know their history and they should know that the struggle's not over yet.

We are all just a work in progress.

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

My first album is playful.

Then my life crashed and burned down: trials, men, drama, no self-love, no identity. A little identity, but not a lot of love for myself, my life.

I listen to gospel music.

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.

Your circumstances do not make you who you are!

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

I know who I am. I am not perfect. I'm not the most beautiful woman in the world. But I'm one of them.

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

When you come from so many damaged places you don't ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.

I'm going down! Because you ain't around, baby, my whole world's upside down!

It's OK showing yourself some love.

Sometimes I frown and I don't realise it.

Everything is scary if you look at it. So you just got to live.

You demand respect and you'll get it. First of all, you give respect.

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

Larry David makes me laugh.

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.

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.

Believe in yourself when nobody else does.

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

I don't listen to people's opinions. I have people around me who I can trust, but most of all I listen to myself.

There's so many things that life is, and no matter how many breakthroughs, trials will exist and we're going to get through it. Just be strong.

I do consider myself part of black history.

When you hold on to anger and unforgiveness, you can't move forward.

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.

I just love food, period.

I'm searching for a real love.

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

It's that first step-getting out the door-that's the toughest. If you can do that, you've already won.

I've been praying to God to show me how to forgive myself. Because ... maybe ... that's the thing I've been searching for.

Two hurt people can not help each other. They can not.

I can have as many bad days as anyone. But I choose to say, 'I'm just fine.'

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

When life is real, it's not going to be smooth.

I wouldn't adopt, but what I will do is give my time and go and try to be there for people.

I can't just make a song people can dance in a club to ... it still has to be real.

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.

I'm from the element of the streets that says that once you've made it, it's yours. But keep it to yourself.

Working in the studio is a more personal experience whereas on stage in front of a billion people, its more exciting performing live.

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

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

I truly enjoy Bono. I think he is an amazing person; I love him.

There's not enough time to be disrespecting ... Life is too short.

When you're going to do whatever you're going to do, you have to get your, put your mind into it.

I've never been a mean person.

You know a lot, but you don't know everything.

I'm hoping that my entrepreneurial side will have me at a place where I don't have to do anything. That's what I'm striving for.

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.

When I was a child I didn't care about getting an education, and I didn't finish high school.

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.

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

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

I decided to start my own label because so many people with talent come to me wanting to know how they can get in the music business.

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

You can look at my palm and see the storm coming. Read the book of my life and see I've overcome it.

Growing up, I was the preferred hairstylist for all of my friends.

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.

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.

I was inspired to create 'My Life' so I could finally share a personal part of my life beyond my music.

I blame my mother for nothing, but forgive her for everything.

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

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.

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.

Negative words are powerful boomerangs so be careful what you say about people and yourself.

Without your health, everything else means nothing.