I think a lot of people think that my parents' deaths is why I write such sad songs but that's not true. Those songs may just be the woman I am.

No matter how old and glorious the models sad indeed is the woman who sees fashion as a means of self-expression rather than an agent of social control.

It is sad to see a woman sacrificing the ties of the affections even to do good.

The first book I wrote was The Bride Price which was a romantic book but my husband burnt the book when he saw it. I was the typical African woman I'd done this privately I wanted him to look at it approve it and he said he wouldn't read it.

I had to trick people into giving me money for my first film. Making a romantic comedy is easier and more expected from a woman than it is to make a drama about a Japanese warrior.

If you're a woman and a guy's ever said anything romantic to you he just left off the second part that would have made you sick if you could have heard it.

And the woman who could win the respect of man was often the woman who could knock him down with her bare fists and sit on him until he yelled for help.

I wanted to be the kind of woman who would attract a certain kind of man that I could respect. That was my thinking. It had to do with the kind of couple I would be a part of.

I'm just one woman away my mother from being the same as Mike Tyson. I would've ended up like him if my mama had not been so tough and strong. A lot of people including Mike don't know I came from the ghetto. They think I'm too nice and proper. But that's the way my mama raised me - to look people in the eye and respect them.

I refuse to step inside the ring and fight like a gladiator against my own. I'm not playing that game. Any woman who has survived a year or more of making music has my undying respect.