Mary Jane Blige, born on January 11, 1971, in The Bronx, New York City, is an influential American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul,” Blige’s powerful voice and emotionally resonant lyrics have made her a prominent figure in both R&B and hip-hop music. Rising to fame in the early 1990s, her debut album “What’s the 411?” showcased her unique blend of soulful vocals and urban beats, establishing her as a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. Throughout her career, Blige has released numerous critically acclaimed albums, including “My Life” and “The Breakthrough,” earning her multiple Grammy Awards and cementing her status as a trailblazer in contemporary music. Beyond her musical achievements, Blige has also made strides as an actress, appearing in films such as “Mudbound,” for which she received critical acclaim. Her resilience, authenticity, and enduring talent have solidified her as an icon in both music and entertainment.

Mary J. Blige Quotes

1. “We are all just a work in progress.”
— Mary J. Blige

2. “In your life there’s peaks and valleys and sometimes we regress, and we don’t even know we regress. You just have to learn how to accept all of your mistakes and learn to love yourself again.”
— Mary J. Blige

3. “I’m searching for a real love.”
— Mary J. Blige

4. “Negative words are powerful boomerangs so be careful what you say about people and yourself.”
— Mary J. Blige

5. “Believe in yourself when nobody else does.”
— Mary J. Blige

6. “My responsibility to God is to live. That’s the gift he gave me. What I do with it is up to me.”
— Mary J. Blige

7. “I don’t want no drama in my life, even though we have a little bit, but no more letting people control you. That’s drama, because then you become something that you’re not.”
— Mary J. Blige

8. “I don’t listen to people’s opinions. I have people around me who I can trust, but most of all I listen to myself.”
— Mary J. Blige

9. “It’s that first step-getting out the door-that’s the toughest. If you can do that, you’ve already won.”
— Mary J. Blige

10. “I blame my mother for nothing, but forgive her for everything.”
— Mary J. Blige

11. “If you’re looking for inner peace from the outside world, you’re not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside.”
— Mary J. Blige

12. “For the first time in my life, I’m proud of myself.”
— Mary J. Blige

13. “I like French fries; I like mashed. I love potatoes.”
— Mary J. Blige

14. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige

15. “I felt ashamed about everything. Me dropping out of high school, me not, you know, just not being beautiful enough. I just didn’t feel like I was smart enough or beautiful enough, you know, for years.”
— Mary J. Blige

16. “Love is wonderful, amazing, and the best thing that can happen to us.”
— Mary J. Blige

17. “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

18. “I mean, I know my heart is not clean, and your heart is not clean, and none of our urban hearts are clean. But you can be washed again.”
— Mary J. Blige

19. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige

20. “Cause I’m no better than you, you, or you. And I can’t get on no throne and preach, ’cause I’m not God.”
— Mary J. Blige

21. “Thank you so much for supporting me from the day I stepped foot into the music industry. It really means something to me to have Maya Angelou speak on my behalf. It also means a lot to have Oprah on my speed dial!”
— Mary J. Blige

22. “The important thing is to realize that no matter what people’s opinions may be, they’re only just that – people’s opinions. You have to believe in your heart what you know to be true about yourself. And let that be that.”
— Mary J. Blige

23. “We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.”
— Mary J. Blige

24. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige

25. “It’s OK showing yourself some love.”
— Mary J. Blige

26. “The streets respect me because I kept it real with me. You gotta be real with yourself, and the streets recognize game.”
— Mary J. Blige

27. “You demand respect and you’ll get it. First of all, you give respect.”
— Mary J. Blige

28. “You have to have a plan. Everything has to be planned. For me, I start with the title of my album, before I even start with the songs. I write down different things that I want album to say, and then the songs come from the different words.”
— Mary J. Blige

29. “The only person that I’m really feeling – because she has an identity of her own, even though she has listened to Mary J. Blige – is Jill Scott.”
— Mary J. Blige

30. “When I was a child I didn’t care about getting an education, and I didn’t finish high school.”
— Mary J. Blige

31. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige

32. “I like to do interior design, I love to quilt, I love to see different colors together, and I love to match things up.”
— Mary J. Blige

33. “There are people out there who want to provoke me and bring back the old Mary but I’m not giving them the satisfaction.”
— Mary J. Blige

34. “If we didn’t have understanding of our journey, we wouldn’t be able to go on. We’d be stuck, like, ‘Why me?’”
— Mary J. Blige

35. “I wouldn’t adopt, but what I will do is give my time and go and try to be there for people.”
— Mary J. Blige

36. “By the time I was a teenager, when I went outside the house, it was about hip-hop all the time. Nothing but hip-hop, block parties.”
— Mary J. Blige

37. “I’m a singer who thinks like a rapper.”
— Mary J. Blige

38. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige

39. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige

40. “Working in the studio is a more personal experience whereas on stage in front of a billion people, its more exciting performing live.”
— Mary J. Blige

41. “That’s the message I want to give to every up-and-coming artist: Do everything that is going to help you later. If you clone somebody else, that’s all they’re gonna keep wanting from you.”
— Mary J. Blige

42. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige

43. “As far as men go, they never gave me a chance to be me; they were always scared that somebody was going to take me.”
— Mary J. Blige

44. “The music business is really, really small. The real music is becoming almost extinct, if you don’t stay true to who you are.”
— Mary J. Blige

45. “You have to create different things, either through lighting or changing the format of the songs and how you’re going to sing them, and even sometimes props.”
— Mary J. Blige

46. “As a kid, I dreamed about being onstage.”
— Mary J. Blige

47. “It was only for two years, and I jumped from family to family. It’s very scary.”
— Mary J. Blige

48. “When you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do, you have to get your, put your mind into it.”
— Mary J. Blige

49. “I’m hoping that my entrepreneurial side will have me at a place where I don’t have to do anything. That’s what I’m striving for.”
— Mary J. Blige

50. “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.”
— Mary J. Blige