The 53-year-old New York City-born Jennifer Lopez has seemingly been in our lives for a long time. She’s an acclaimed dancer, singer, pop star, performer, businesswoman, and actor. She’s played the Super Bowl halftime and has her own clothing line. In a word, she’s successful.
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With so much experience, insight, and success, though, one might wonder what Lopez has to say about the world, her upbringing, the choices she made, her loves, and her craft.
These are the 20 best Jennifer Lopez quotes.
1. “I love a long bath. I love anything creative. I love decorating. I even love just flipping through magazines and vegging out for a while. But I’m also one of those people who loves to work, so I’ll sing, dance, work on my next performance, or write whomever it may be about a new idea.”
2. “I am a lover. And with my kids, I am even softer. I realize with my son, I have to sometimes be tough, especially now when he’s pushing boundaries. With my daughter, I can get a little stern with her and she pretty much will listen.”
3. “When you have children, you realize you can’t plan anything. There’s no Plan A, no Plan B. Life will happen and you will go with it.”
4. “I watched my parents. My dad worked nights, and I was aware of how much he was doing for us. My mom was a Tupperware lady and also worked at the school. I always felt that I couldn’t let them down. And I had a natural discipline from early on. I was always training for something.”
5. “I never ask what I’m doing the next day. I don’t want to know what I’m doing tomorrow. It’s much too overwhelming. So I just go day by day, without knowing.”
6. “This is the man my mother lived for. My career means something now because I’ve worked with Robert Redford.”
7. “I like to maintain a certain sense of fantasy in my life. I am kind of like that at home. Do I have the full hair and makeup? No. But I might have the nice dress on.”
8. “Early on, my family really made me love who I was and what I looked like.”
9. “There are certain people that are marked for death. I have my little list of those that treated me unfairly.”
10. “People assume I’m out there having this great life, but money doesn’t erase the pain. When you’re young you barrel through life, making choices without thinking of repercussions. A few years down the line, you wake up in a certain place and wonder how the hell you got there.”
11. “There’s no way in the world that just because women turn the number 40, they’re anything less than amazing. That’s crazy. If anything, you’re even more amazing!”
12. “But the idea of taking things and mixing them together is what I do in my music. I take hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance, funk, and soul and mix it all together to get my own sound.”
13. “The biggest insecurity I had was my singing. Even though I had sold 70 million records, there was this feeling like, I’m not good at this.”
14. “When I first started on television, people, and even my own manager at the time, would tell me I had to make all of these changes. But you have to stand up and say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with me or my shape or who I am; you’re the one with the problem!’ And when you can really believe that, all of a sudden other people start believing, too.”
15. “I have my own high standards for what I want in a partner and how I want to be treated. I bring a lot to the table. I’m not talking about material things but what I have to offer as a person—love and loyalty and all the things that make a good relationship.”
16. “You get what you give. What you put into things is what you get out of them.”
17. “Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for.”
18. “I don’t regret what I’ve been through. I’ve had ups and downs, super highs, and some really low lows. I’ve been so blessed that I could never say, ‘I wish this didn’t happen.’ It’s part of who I am.”
19. “You’ve got to love yourself first. You’ve got to be okay on your own before you can be okay with somebody else.”
20. “I only do what my gut tells me to. I think it’s smart to listen to other people’s advice, but at the end of the day, you’re the only one who can tell you what’s right for you.”
Photo by Daniele Venturelli/Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images
