I would never say I was an icon, but so many people have said I am, so I suppose I am. I mean, I can’t not be what everyone says I am. But I don’t feel like an icon.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

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.

I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don’t understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

Getting recognized is insane. It just blows my mind. Like, someone who you don’t know at all can just be like, ‚Oh my God – are you Billie?‘

My upbringing in Canada made me the person I am. I will always be proud to be a Canadian.

I use my celebrity status to inspire someone, to give them hope.

Proud 2 Pay – that’s something that distinguishes me, that’s something that defines me, and we’re going to keep that going.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

I tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.

Why am I a star? It can’t be because of looks.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it’s not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

I’m the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It’s a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don’t like – and the fact that it’s not reversible.

There was my name up in lights. I said, ‚God, somebody’s made a mistake.‘ But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, ‚Remember, you’re not a star.‘ Yet there it was up in lights.

You don’t go to Notre Dame to learn something; you go to Notre Dame to be somebody.

I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.

Madonna and I are very different. Just saying. We’re very different. I wouldn’t make that comparison at all, and I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna: she’s a nice lady, and she’s had a fantastic, huge career – biggest pop star of all time.

I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated.

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

We’re so trendy we can’t even escape ourselves.

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

People don’t realize that we, we meaning people in show business, have the same problems as everyone else. Money doesn’t change that. Fame doesn’t change that. Sometimes that brings on more problems. You know, it’s just a different kind of problems.

There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.

Only the public can make a star. It’s the studios who try to make a system out of it.

You’ll never rise any higher than the way you see yourself.

I just hope people don’t get sick of us. I’m sick of us and I’m in Destiny’s Child.

The only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don’t like it, actually.

We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.

If you feel that there’s the author and then the character, then the book is not working. People have a habit of identifying the author with the narrator, and you can’t, obviously, be all of the narrators in all of your books, or else you’d be a very strange person indeed.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Before ever meeting Priyanka Chopra, I had heard her name coming out of Bollywood and was impressed: she was beautiful, talented, had made nearly 50 movies, earned multiple awards – a massive star.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

What a blast it is to be here with Michael Moore.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity. Some things will be, but not everything will have to be, because there are some sets of experiences that are just better with other identities.

We are often attracted to the wrong things, whether it be money, fame, or approval.

I don’t like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I’m from New York. I will kill to get what I need.

I’ve never seen myself as a star. I never call myself a celebrity or a superstar, whatever.

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

In England, when an athlete gets to the top, we do our best to destroy him.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.

I’m Mickey Mouse. They don’t know who’s inside the suit.

I think sometimes celebrities get so big, they’re not reachable.

I really do feel part of America to my very bones; at the same time, I know that I come from somewhere else.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

I don’t really regard myself as a political figure.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

I don’t dabble and spend much mind or time dealing with, I don’t know, people’s perceptions of me. I truly don’t.

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

I never have really become accustomed to the ‚John.‘ Nobody ever really calls me John… I’ve always been Duke or Marion or John Wayne. It’s a name that goes well together, and it’s like one word – John Wayne.

Honor means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.