I’m on the autism spectrum. I don’t usually follow social coding and so therefore I go my own way.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

I like to be myself, and I don’t pretend. For instance, I don’t dress up for occasions; I am what I am.

Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.

I love tattoos. And mine symbolise who I really am. I have a Samurai on my left arm. At a subconscious level, I connect to this warrior and model myself on his discipline, skills and honour. There is also a tribal tattoo and a Chinese symbol of faith. I have seen a lot of people getting tattoos just because it’s a trend.

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

I’d always tried to resist playing the supervirility thing. I liked showing the vulnerability of age.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

When I began in 1960, individuality wasn’t an accepted thing to look for; it was about species-specific behaviour. But animal behaviour is not hard science. There’s room for intuition.

In many ways, I’ve been writing personal stories all my life.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

I didn’t want to just be another girl singer. I wanted there to be something that set me apart.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

I have always marched to my own beat, and most frequently, it was inconsistent not only with my own immediate family, but with my culture as well.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

A lot of people have said I’d have probably done better in my career if I hadn’t looked so cheap and gaudy. But I dress to be comfortable for me, and you shouldn’t be blamed because you want to look pretty.

If I’m in a bad mood, or if I’m uncomfortable, it’s probably what I’m wearing that’s making me feel that way.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

I feel like when I try to fit in, it comes across as not genuine, and that is not good. I’d rather just do me and have people say, ‚Oh. That’s interesting,‘ than try to fit in.

People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can’t knock it.

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

Robyn is who I am. Rihanna – that’s an idea of who I am.

You have to give others the opportunity to love who you love. If they don’t accept it, it’s their loss.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

I love being a woman and I was not one of these women who rose through professional life by wearing men’s clothes or looking masculine. I loved wearing bright colors and being who I am.

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

It’s very hard to find your own words – and you don’t actually exist until you have your own words.

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.

I go through a lot of depression, and I know other people do, too, but I have an outlet that so many people don’t. If you have that inside of you and can’t get it out, what do you do?

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

I said I was ‚The Greatest,‘ I never said I was the smartest!

When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves.

You know, I just do whatever feels right to me! And so that’s what you’re gonna get!

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

I’d like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

I’ve been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don’t need to write a book for adults.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

I’m not a big fan of psychoanalysis: I think if you have mental problems what you need are good pills. But I do think that if you have thinks that bother you, things that are unresolved, the more that you talk about them, write about them, the less serious they become.

I’m no natural beauty. If I’m gonna have any looks at all, I’m gonna have to create them.

You don’t have to be like everybody else or do things like everybody else. God created you to be a unique individual, and He wants you to be free to be who He made you to be.