Queen Latifah

“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.”

“When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, 'You're either going to love yourself or hate yourself.' And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things.”

“I would say I'm voluptuous. Statuesque. Definitely curvaceous.”

“My legs are nice, my lips are shapely, and my breasts are pretty. They popped up when I was 11 and they weren't small then. I was teased, but now those kids wish they had what I have!”

“I did Jay Leno with Mike the Situation, and he just - he lives, like, ten minutes from me in Jersey. He's like, 'If you ever get a flat, call me. I'll come fix your tire.' That's how we do. That's neighborly, you know?”

“Two records put me over the top with hip-hop. One of them was 'Planet Rock,' and the other had no lyrics - it was called 'Numbers,' from a group called Kraftwerk. Every kid in the 'hood in New York and New Jersey was popping, locking, and breaking to that record. It was the hottest track on the street at the time.”

“If you try to follow everyone else's mold, you'll probably fail at some point because God created us uniquely for a reason.”

“I love riding, even if it's just my Vespa. You just zip and do your thing. I find there's a different awareness when I ride; it connects me to my senses and to God.”

“If there are kids who want to follow in my footsteps, I'd say that my shoes are too big for them to fill! But their shoe size is just perfect.”

“I have my dad's shape. No booty.”

“I've been giving back since I was a teen, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving and handing out toys at toys drives for Christmas. It's very important to give back as a youth. It's as simple as helping an old lady across the street or giving up your seat on the bus for someone who is pregnant.”

“My mom has always been my champion. She was very smart and grounded. She said, 'Save your money. Pay your taxes. Don't put everything in one basket,' but she let me explore and be creative.”

“There were musicians that influenced me, but they weren't all women. Teena Marie was a big influence because she wrote and produced her own music, which let me know that women could write and produce their own music, which was an empowering moment for me.”

“You do silly things for love sometimes and not-so-smart things for love.”

“I was not born a size 2. I'm not skinny, period. I'm not willing to sleep with the director or step on somebody else's neck to get the job.”

“New Jersey is a great place to live. And we have given some of the best talent to the world, from Jack Nicholson, John Travolta, to Jerry Lewis to Bon Jovi to Frank Sinatra.”

“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.”

“I learned early that I had to work harder than the white kids and harder than the boys.”

“I often find it's just the confidence that makes you sexy, not what your body looks like. It's how you feel about yourself that makes you sexy.”

“I lost relatives to AIDS, a couple of my closest cousins. I lost friends to AIDS, high-school friends who never even made it to their 21st birthdays in the '80s. When it's that close to you, you can't really deny it, and you can't run from it.”