Brandy Norwood

I’m going to let people know that it’s cool to have a child and be young and still be a good mom. It’s really tough, but I’m doing it.

To be on this set today, I feel very blessed for the second chance and for the opportunity, my record company believing in me and everybody here just showing me so much love and support.

The more natural, the better.

I was rapping as a hobby. It was something I did for my friends and just played around on ideas and stuff like that.

I wash my face every night with Ivory soap, and I don’t wear much makeup.

When I was 17, my producer Rodney Jerkins was working with Michael Jackson at the time. He knew how much I wanted to meet Michael Jackson, so he says, ‘Would you like to come and meet him?’ I’m like, ‘Are you serious? Of course I want to meet Michael Jackson! Where do I meet you? Where do we come?’

Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love. Authority is for children and servants, yet not without sweetness.

My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess – she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived, I probably wouldn’t be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.

I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family. I have a wonderful relationship with my brother and sister; this makes me feel that I know always where I belong.

The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family.

I learned in those eight years is that home is where you make it, and we were in the White House for eight years, but it wasn’t the house. It was us in it. It was our value and our love for each other.

My dad died, I think, at 87. So I’ll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I’m not trying to lose weight.

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.

[On his mother’s adversity] She had a very difficult beginning… All of my mothers family were killed… and she came to America at the time of the depression. It was not an easy life at all.

Having a sister is like having a best friend you can’t get rid of. You know whatever you do, they’ll still be there.

There was a lot of charm in just living in a big family compound of a house. My two uncles, who were into jazz, lived in the basement, and one of them, Uncle Peter, taught me my first songs on the ukulele.

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.

I learned more from my mother than from all the art historians and curators who have informed me about technical aspects of art history and art appreciation over the years.

I feel very blessed to have two wonderful, healthy children who keep me completely grounded, sane and throw up on my shoes just before I go to an awards show just so I know to keep it real.

I’ve known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family liked everyone else but them. That hurts, and that’s as deep a hurt as you can possibly get. I’ve known people that would have problems with their love life. This is kind of how blues began – out of feeling misused, mistreated. Feeling like they had nobody to turn to. Blues don’t necessarily have to be sung by a person that came from Mississippi as I did, because there are people having problems all over the world.

I was bribing North to wear her butter 350’s by saying they glow in the dark. However, she made me turn off the lights to test it. She caught me lying but Kanye was on speaker phone and said don’t worry I will make them.