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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.

-Mary J. Blige

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I Care About Me

Mary J. Blige

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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.

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Work In Progress

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In The Studio You Can Really Concentrate On Performing The Song Where As On Stage You Also Have To Worry About Connecting With So Many People, They're Definitely Different.

God Loves Me And Sent His Son To Die For Me So I Have To Live To Please Him Because He Saved Me When Everyone Abandoned Me.

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The Streets Respect Me Because I Kept It Real With Me. You Gotta Be Real With Yourself, And The Streets Recognize Game.

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I Used To Think I Was Ugly. I Thought I Looked Like A Camel. A Person Who Doesn't Love Themselves, They Will See Anything That Pops Up On Their Face. I've Seen Squirrels, I've Seen A Bird, And I've Seen All Kinds Of Animals On My Face. But That Is The Result Of Self-hate. I've Learned To Say: 'you Know What? I Am A Beautiful Black Woman'.

I'm On My Way To A Place Where I'd Never Dreamed I'd Be, And That's Perfection.

I Grew Up Watching Mtv, When Journey Was Huge, When Pat Benatar Had 'love Is A Battlefield,' And My Friends And I Used To Cut School To Watch This Woman In The Video. We Loved Pat Benatar.

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.

I Wouldn't Adopt, But What I Will Do Is Give My Time And Go And Try To Be There For People.

When You Hold On To Anger And Unforgiveness, You Can't Move Forward.

I Was Inspired To Create 'my Life' So I Could Finally Share A Personal Part Of My Life Beyond My Music.

No One Intimidates Me Because I'm Not Trying To Do What You Do, Because I Can't Do What You Do. I Can Only Do What Mary J. Blige Can Do, So That Relaxes Me Right There, And It Gets Me Out Of The Competition And That Whole Thing.

When Life Is Real, It's Not Going To Be Smooth.

Then My Life Crashed And Burned Down: Trials, Men, Drama, No Self-love, No Identity. A Little Identity, But Not A Lot Of Love For Myself, My Life.

Don't Go A Full Day Or Night Without Washing Your Face. You Have To Get All The Dirt And Makeup Out Of Your Pores.

I Listen To Gospel Music.

You Can't Get Around Pain And Opposition, But You Can Try To Be Joyful In The Trial, And Thank Yourself For The Trial, And Thank God For The Strength To Get Through It.

For The First Time In My Life, I'm Proud Of Myself

I'm My Worst Critic, And I Like The Fact That I Can Listen To Myself Now And Make Fun Of Myself, Listen, Make Changes - 'oh, Man, That's Messed Up. Okay, I Need To Work On That; I Need To Work On This.'

No One Compares To You. Just Remember That. There's No One Out There - There's Only One Of You, And That's It. And Whatever You Believe About You That's Great, No One Else Has It. And I Can't Look Like You, There's No Way I Can Slip Into Your Body And Be You, And You Can't Slip Into My Body And Be Me. This Is All We're Gonna Get.

Nowadays, With The State Of The Music Business, For Any Artist, Whether You're Up-and-coming Or You've Been In It For Awhile, You Have To Explore Different Revenues And Different Ways Of Expressing Yourself.

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I’ve Done Well, I’ve Been Disappointed, And I Think It All Goes Back To You. Of Course The Labels Are Going To Be The Labels. It’s The Music Business. You Are A Business. That’s What They Do. So You’ve Got To Protect Yourself.

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I Cannot Save The World, That's Not What I'm Trying To Do. I Guess I'm Just Trying To Walk The Walk And Be An Example To Those That Want It. Not Everybody Does, But If Mary J Blige Can Come Out Of That Same Hole You Were In, Then You Can Do It Too - That's My Goal: To Do That Without Saying It, But Actually Live It.

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Life Is Full Of Trials And Tribulations. It's Dramatic When You Don't Treat People Right When You're In The Tribulations, But I Know Now How To Get Out Of It. You Have To Make A Decision To Say 'no More', And Then You Know What To Do When The Trials Happen.

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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.

It's That First Step-getting Out The Door-that's The Toughest. If You Can Do That, You've Already Won.

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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.'

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It's Up To Us To Choose Whether We Win Or Lose...and I Choose To Win.

I Like What I See When I'm Looking At Me When I'm Walking Past The Mirror.

It's Not Just Songs And Glamour. It's Sweat, Blood, Broken Toes, And Mistakes... It's Life.

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Larry David Makes Me Laugh.

From Being A Little Girl In The Projects, Going Through All Of The Mess That I Was Going Through, To Ending Up At The Inauguration For The First African-american President, I'm Speechless Right Now Because I Never Thought I'd - I Never Ever - I Couldn't Even See That Far. Even When I Ended Up In The Music Business I Couldn't See That.

African American

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 Decided To Start My Own Label Because So Many People With Talent Come To Me Wanting To Know How They Can Get In The Music Business.

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.

It's Sad That A Lot Of Identities Are Lost And A Lot Of Careers Are Lost Because There's Sort Of A Clone Thing Going On.

When I Was A Child I Didn't Care About Getting An Education, And I Didn't Finish High School.

I Like Hanging Out With Me, And I've Accepted Everything About Me Good, Bad Whatever It Is. That's Why I'm Able To, That's Why No One Can Tell Me Anything Negative About Myself.

I Started Speaking About What I Was Dealing With Through My Music, And 4 Million Women Responded And Said, 'us Too, Mary.' And I Didn't Know That Everyone Was Hurting Like I Was Hurting. I Had No Idea.

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.

When You Come From So Many Damaged Places You Don't Ever Want To Spiral Back There, So You Gotta Continue To Check Yourself.

I'm From The Element Of The Streets That Says That Once You've Made It, It's Yours. But Keep It To Yourself.

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.

It Hurts When You Have To Smile And You Don't Want To Smile, But The Best Thing To Do Is To Smile.

I Still Get Nervous About Singing. I Drink Tea With Honey And Lemon Before Every Concert. And I Need To Have Scented Candles In All Of My Hotel Rooms.

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.

It's Ok Showing Yourself Some Love.

Negative Words Are Powerful Boomerangs So Be Careful What You Say About People And Yourself.

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