Rather be dead than cool.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

I don’t have to show anything to anyone. There is nothing to prove.

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

Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don’t do things to shock people. I’m not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this planet. So while I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.

My style has always been my own, just like my flow and style.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

I’m terrified of losing my voice.

I wanted to only create a great perfume, not any perfume that would sell, but a great artistic one that the fans would not feel cheated by.

I don’t feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don’t have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you’ve got the money to be able to afford it, then it’s really good to buy something from me, but don’t buy too much.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

I don’t believe in endorsing a product that you don’t want to endorse.

I’ve always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

Freedom is relative.

All I can do is be me, whoever that is.

The thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.

Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.

A person who is truly authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but can simply be him – or herself.

My whole life is a theater piece.

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

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don’t want it smoothed out.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

When you’re just like everybody else, you’ve nothing to offer other than your conformity.

To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

This is not a showman’s job. I will not step out of character.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

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

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

I don’t tell anyone how to write and no one tells me.

The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.

For some reason, I’m really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

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

In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

I’ve had everything pierced at some point.

Hair is about when you’re younger. I am my hair.

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.

Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.