Mary J. Blige's Quotes

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

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

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

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.

I remember a time when all my fans were crying and sad and going through hell. Now, we're trying to uplift each other and accept ourselves for who we are, even if nobody else does.

Yonkers made me strong and made me believe in myself, because so many people would doubt you and not believe. There are people that would believe in you, but the environment was so harsh, nobody wanted you to get out, you know?

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.

Don't give up, be positive and if you know someone who knows someone at a record company don't stop beating down their door till you get heard. Don't ever say it'll never happen or it'll never happen.

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 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.

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

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.

Really, every woman is an example to me, because as women we go through so much pain. We have to live this perfect life when we are messed up inside. We all go through trials and tribulations.

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've just been growing right along. It's painful, but it's a great pain, and I like suffering for great results. It's like going to the gym. It hurts really bad at first, but after a couple of months and after that diet, you're looking so hot.

I don't know. Only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins. It's up to us to choose, whether we win or lose and I choose to win.

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.

One day I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere by blaming other people for my circumstances. I finally understood: Even if you feel someone has wronged you or owes you something, no one is going to give you anything for free.

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.

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

In the inner city, there's a mentality that the government owes you something. My breakthrough came when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and took responsibility for every part of my life. No more pity parties. I've gotta love me more than anybody else loves me.

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

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

I do consider myself part of black history.

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

I don't know what kind of God the rest of y'all are serving, but the God I serve says, 'Mary, you need to be the hottest thing this year, and I'm gonna make sure you're doing that.'

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.

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 care about me now. When I didn't care about me, I was, like, 'Why is this going wrong? Why is my life so bad?' But when you don't care about yourself, nobody else is going to care about you. So I learned to love myself, even if nobody else does.

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 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'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.

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

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