Queen Latifah

I feel like I've set the example for loving your body no matter what size it is, but I also can set the example for being healthy as well.

When my body feels good, I feel more energized and alive, and that's sexy. I'm taking care of this body God gave me.

I lost relatives to AIDS. A couple of my closest cousins, favorite 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 - you know, you can't really deny it, and you can't run from it.

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

I got a few marriage proposals in my 20s. I just wasn't ready. I just knew if I committed, I would've wound up doing something wrong, messing it up. I still felt like I had some living to do.

I know a lot of people who really aren't beautiful because their attitudes are very nasty... Whether I make the 50 most beautiful list or not, I'm always going to feel like I'm number one most beautiful to myself... I get that from my mom, and my daddy and my friends who raised me.

There is no profession more essential than that of an educator, and it's time for all of us to embrace and celebrate their importance and contribution to America's children.

There's no way I can represent for everyone. I can't represent for all women or all big women or all black women. It's important for people not to make celebrities their source of who they should be in life. I can't take on the pressure of being perfect. Nobody is.

To me, I always felt like I was carrying a torch for women of any size to be themselves - it doesn't matter whether you're a size 2 or a 22, just be who you are.

There are a lot of people who helped make Queen Latifah who she is today. I don't forget, but a lot of people do and get big heads. My mom will make me walk the dogs or take out the trash when I go home. I'm not allowed to get a big head; I've still got to do the simple things in life.

I'd say, if you want to be an artist, start with your art; start with making great music and it will, hopefully, eventually cut through all of the nonsense that is out there.

Business is fun. Controlling your own destiny is fun. Creating an idea and turning it into a movie; finding an artist and guiding their career and bringing them to some type of status - there's joy in that.

I enjoy just being me. I don't need to be Queen Latifah, the brand, 24 hours a day.

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.