Queen Latifah Quotes

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Queen Latifah

Profession : Musician

Birth : March 18, 1970

I've loved car racing all my life. I watch NASCAR regularly, and drag racing because we have Raceway Park in New Jersey. I think I got it from my father.

Queen Latifah

My mother wouldn't allow me to speak slang when I was growing up. But when I got outside, around my friends, it was 'Yo' and 'That's the joint' and 'Yo, what's up?' So I had my game for my friends and my game for my mom.

Queen Latifah

Award shows, like the Grammys, were tough on us early in hip-hop, not even televising our categories or splitting them up on best male or female or any of that. We had to earn them.

Queen Latifah

I've never been the straight rapper that is going to stand in a cipher and battle all day. I started off battle rapping, but to me, making songs became more important than freestyles... I've met many rappers who can freestyle but can't make a record.

Queen Latifah

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm way more of a joker than I am a serious person.

Queen Latifah

When I'm doing something I love, I can lose sleep. I can go and go and go and go. My work ethic is pretty intense. But when it comes to doing something that I don't love every day, I'm not very good at it. That's called work, and I don't like work that much.

Queen Latifah

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.

Queen Latifah

Church was a requirement - there was no choice in the matter; so was vacation bible school. Gospel has been in me since I was a kid.

Queen Latifah

I do feel like I have a direct connection with God for some reason; always have since I was a little kid - I would talk to God, talk to the sky.

Queen Latifah

I think as far as the music industry is concerned, it's kind of been the wild, wild West in a way with the Internet, which is not necessarily a bad thing to me.

Queen Latifah

You do silly things for love sometimes and not-so-smart things for love.

Queen Latifah

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.

Queen Latifah

Yeah, I'm from Jersey; it's almost like I was automatically born a Nets fan.

Queen Latifah

My mom was my main influence growing up, and Phylicia Rashad reminded me a lot of my mother, just the way she handled certain things, she was... not soft-spoken but smooth-spoken. Just very calm, cool, collected about things.

Queen Latifah

I would like - either as an actor, or producer or even director - to do something sci-fi or action-related. I like sci-fi, always have, 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' and all that stuff.

Queen Latifah

I'm proud of everything I do, but I think I'm the most happy about becoming a rapper. It was my entrance into everything. That helped me get into acting.

Queen Latifah

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.

Queen Latifah

I always loved all kinds of music. I would watch musicals a lot as a kid, on TV, watch the Fred Astaire movies. I'd watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' I was a big Jerry Lewis fan, and they'd have these big bands and someone singing - some siren, or some guy singing some gorgeous song. I was always enamored of that style of music.

Queen Latifah

If my brother and I wanted money in our pockets, we had to get jobs - my first was at 15, at Burger King. We had to come up with ways to create an income.

Queen Latifah

When it came time to be a professional rapper, I wouldn't sign anything without reading it. There was no way I was going to have people make decisions for me or wake up one day and find that I was broke because I never bothered to read a contract.

Queen Latifah