I’ve always kinda been a little outcast myself, a little oddball, doin‘ my thing, my own way. And it’s been hard for me to, to be accepted, certainly in the early years of my life.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

It’s true my father abused me and didn’t love and protect me the way he should have, and at times it seemed no one would ever help me and it would never end. But God always had a plan for my life, and He has redeemed me.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

I’m just trying to be myself. I’m not trying to be anyone else.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.

At the end of the day, I understand that life has road blocks, and life is like school – you’ll be tested; we gotta pass it.

It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

I love being busy.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

I didn’t consider myself a fashion designer at all at the time of punk. I was just using fashion as a way to express my resistance and to be rebellious. I came from the country, and by the time I got to London, I considered myself to be very stupid. It was my ambition to understand the world I live in.

God made me and broke the mold.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

Resist the need to be ‚right‘ all the time or to always have the last word.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.

I think that I’m perfect.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Libraries raised me.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

Even with my divorce and with everything, I don’t need money.

I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

Things do not change; we change.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.

The more successful I become, the more I need a man.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.