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

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

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

The only answer to fear is faith in God, knowing He loves you unconditionally and individually.

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 want people to understand they have to live their own lives the way they want to and not just do what we do.

I am attracted to people who make this effort in knowing what suits them – they are individual and stylish.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

I’m afraid that everything will get homogenized and be the same.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

We boil at different degrees.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don’t care who people are as long as they’re themselves, whatever that is.

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.

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

I think I do myself a disservice by comparing myself to Steve Jobs and Walt Disney and human beings that we’ve seen before. It should be more like Willy Wonka… and welcome to my chocolate factory.

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.

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.‘

My own eight children all march to the beat of their inner music, and in some cases, it is definitely far away from what I hear. I’ve had to honor their instincts and their choices, and merely guided them out of harm’s way until they could be their own guides.

When I arrived, at first a lot of people were like, ‚This kid is different.‘

If you have fear, you are bound by tradition, you follow some leader or guru. When you are bound by tradition, when you are afraid of your husband or your wife, you lose your dignity as an individual human being.

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

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

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

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.

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

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.

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

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

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.

People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.

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

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

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.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.

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.

If you’re too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

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.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

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 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?

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

Everyone has their style and your style explains a lot about who you are – you feel me? I’ve had style since childhood, so I like to dress how I feel. But maybe I get carried away by some trends.

I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don’t like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don’t like to be shaped by society.

Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

Originality is really important.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There’s no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.

I don’t compare myself to anyone else; I don’t make comments about anyone else because they do what feels right for them, and that’s okay by me.