I can simply tell you that since I was a kid, I didn’t like to look like anyone else.

I’m a free spirit.

I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I’m in a world of my own.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?

I always was a Christian… whatsoever a man thinks in his heart is who he is.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

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

I dressed more like a pop star, I suppose, rather than the traditional blazer and tall trousers other players went for.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Sometimes, people can be extraordinarily judgmental and closed-minded to anyone different or special, which is why it’s so hard for young people in this day and age to be comfortable enough in their own skin to not listen to the people picking on them.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

For my career, I wouldn’t go racing if I didn’t enjoy it. I still need to have my say, and not just get put with a team and get told to deal with it.

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

I don’t think there’s anything unique about human intelligence.

I wanted to write.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

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

I’m not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We’re not ‚celebrities‘, whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They’re what people meet.

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

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.

After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.

You learn that there’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It’s just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don’t let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.

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.

All of my music is honest.

I’m not a sheep.

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.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

I’ve never been an intellectual but I have this look.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

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

I don’t really like to call myself a brand, and I don’t like to think of myself as a brand. I’m a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that’s not my focus.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

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

I enjoy wearing pins, and nobody tells me to do 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 think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

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.

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

I’m a really particular person. I want it my way.

I do have a few little tattoos, but they were mostly done to cover scars because I’m so fair.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.