Quotes from Missy Elliott

I do Dance Dance Revolution. I'm not as good as the little kids that come in the arcade. Their little feet go crazy fast. I'm not that fast, but I'm good on it!

Its funny, because for females in general - not just in music, but the corporate ladder as well - anything we do has always been harder for us. When it comes to music, the industry wants you to conform, to look like this and to sound like this and do this or that. It makes it harder. It's harder for us to come out and be bosses and lead the pack.

I have to respect her family, and until they come and say, 'We're ready to do an Aaliyah album,' then I don't really want to come and try to get into that because that's very sensitive.

I've learnt to be happy by myself.

I couldn't write because my nervous system was so bad - I couldn't even use a pen.

My blood pressure was always up from just overworking.

Breaking news: there is only one Missy.

Me personally, I don't ask too much, but I do ask Him to continue to bless me successfully, financially, and just to keep me humble.

I want to make something commercial that people can pick up on.

People are quick to be like, 'You're irrelevant. You're a flop; you're washed up.'

I don't want to get caught up and be an artist always on the go. Because once you do that, it's hard to get into the studio and do what I do.

And basically I always said when I was little that if I ever became successful or a celebrity, I would buy her this huge house and she would never have to work anymore. And I've done that. So I feel happy about doing that.

If anybody calls me a female Quincy Jones, that's way, way complimentary. That's something I'll cherish for life.

I wasn't born a superstar.

I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that's really important to us, and music is all we've really got.

I am very scared of wasps; my cousin was stung in the eye once.

Before Missy, there was no comparison to what Missy was doing.

If I'm paying people, and they're not handling my business right, I have to check them. 'Cause sometimes you're nice, and people don't jump on what they're supposed to do, but if you go in there screaming at everybody - 'Look, why aren't my posters up?' or 'Why wasn't my single out on this day?' - then they jump right on it.

A lot of people don't do this. You can count on a couple of hands probably how many artists also produce and write, both for themselves and for others, and are able to be successful at both things.

I'm blessed to be living this dream of writing and singing, but that's not the real dream I had. The real dream was to make enough money to take care of all the pain and suffering that my mother has been through.

If you got talent, you just have to do you.

There's that saying: 'God gave you talent, and if you don't use it He'll take it away from you.' And I always said, 'I don't want God to come down and take my talents away.' So, by using all these talents and being successful in all of them, I've always got something to fall back on.

I talked about my father being abusive to my mother - people have never heard me talk about anything like that. That brings people a little bit more personal with Missy.

I was very disturbed to find that a few people were angry at my weight loss.