God made me and broke the mold.

For a long time I was scared I’d find out I was like my mother.

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

People should make up their own mind about what they think of me.

White… is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black… God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.

Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.

The essential lesson I’ve learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you’re not here as a human being only. You’re a spiritual being having a human experience.

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God’s language – it’s better, it’s finer, it’s language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that’s the most interesting: the part that doesn’t go according to what you expected.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared much what others think.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistically uninteresting.

Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

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

In the flush of love’s light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

Originality is really important.

My life is my message.

My children came out as individuals in their own right. They were not my products. They had their own characters and were very strong-minded. I gave them a lot of freedom when they were still very young. The one thing they got from me is morals. They would never betray anyone. They are really good people.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

I think style is being so comfortable and confident in what you’re wearing. That’s what style is, ‚cause everybody’s got different style.

But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.

God always has patience.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

God and I have a great relationship, but we both see other people.

What was God doing before the divine creation?

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Religion, born of the earth’s need for the disclosing of a god, is related to and co-extensive with not the individual man, but the whole of mankind.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

We’re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

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

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

I’ve never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be that way.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

I specifically did not read other First Ladies‘ books, because I didn’t want to be influenced by how they defined the role. I knew that I would have to find this role – very uniquely and specifically to me and who I was.

As for our great King, when we venture into His presence, let us have a purpose there. Let us beware of playing at praying; it is insolence toward God.

I kinda live where I find myself.

At the heart of every being lies creation’s dream of a principle that will one day give organic form to its fragmented treasures. God is unity.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

Single life is so overrated.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

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.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn’t think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it – though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, ‚I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.‘

To create something you must be something.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.