Alicia Keys

A great song can pull me out of a slump and lighten my heart.

I first fell in love with the piano, I knew it was me. I was dying to play.

It’s my nature to downplay.

Musicians have a really big part to play in spreading messages because they’re able to reach a large portion of people on an emotional level. Artists reach people at their heart; it’s the only time we meet in one place and put our differences aside. When you’re in a forum listening to music, all you feel in that moment is love and the understanding.

You’ve got to have a good spirit on the inside. That’s what’s really going to make you look like you’re ready to rock the world.

On my album Here, that’s the first time that I’ve really understood how I could put all the things that were happening in the world and in my life and in our lives as just human beings into one body that was just so powerful and really had a perspective. That was an opening for me and I think that naturally, there is just so much to talk about. I don’t see me getting quiet anytime soon.

I do respect them; I have great respect for women. In fact, one of the reasons ‘The Apprentice’ was such a successful show for so many years, the audience of women was fantastic.

It’s pretty clear that if men were having babies we’d have different policies.

It’s work having a vagina. Guys don’t think that it’s work but it is. You think it shows up like that to the event? It doesn’t. Every night it’s like getting it ready for its first Quinceanera, believe me.

Being a strong woman is very important to me. But doing it all on my own is not.

I love to challenge the status quo. That’s been my mission from day one as an actress and an early feminist wanting equality and wanting to push the limits of what’s possible.

I advise young women: Negotiate hard and know your worth.

I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days.

Woman is the dominant sex. Men have to do all sorts of stuff to prove they are worthy of a woman’s attention.

If you’re someone who genuinely believes that women don’t deserve or aren’t as much as men, you’re like the plague. On the big history chart, you’re the plague … it’s just pointless and deadly.

We have become the men we wanted to marry.

“From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18 to 35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash.

I’ve been at so many tables with so many folks who are imposters. But shame on us if we sit by and let an imposter talk us down.

Being a feminist is being equal to what a man do

A feminist is a person who believes in the power of women just as much as they believe in the power of anyone else. It’s equality, it’s fairness, and I think it’s a great thing to be a part of.

Do not live someone else’s life and someone else’s idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that’s inside of you.