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

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

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.

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

I’m here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don’t follow what you’ve been told you’re supposed to do.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

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

I’m not trying to be sexy. It’s just my way of expressing myself when I move around.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

I just want to be myself.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

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.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

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

You call yourself what you want to call yourself.

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

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

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.

Don’t you love it that Prince doesn’t use Twitter? Don’t you think he’s somewhere on a unicorn?

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

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.

I said I was ‚The Greatest,‘ I never said I was the smartest!

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

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 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.

We boil at different degrees.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

You have to give others the opportunity to love who you love. If they don’t accept it, it’s their loss.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.

Ultimately, I’m not doing that much. I’m only doing what a human being who feels wants to do – in my way, without stepping out of my flow, while staying in my lane. Without, I guess, boring people.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.

I’m not who people expect me to be. I’m not Henry Kissinger.

A person’s a person, no matter how small.

One of my proudest moments is I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of popularity.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don’t get me.

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

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

You don’t have to be like everybody else or do things like everybody else. God created you to be a unique individual, and He wants you to be free to be who He made you to be.

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.

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

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.