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.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

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 think women want to take care of themselves, and I think having a voice in how that is done is very important.

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.

Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

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

I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.

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

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

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

I praticed making faces in the mirror and it would drive my mother crazy. She used to scare me by saying that I was going to see the devil if I kept looking in the mirror. That fascinated me even more, of course.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

In many ways, I’ve been writing personal stories all my life.

People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he’s ever read, and another person will say it’s absolutely idiotic. I mean, there’s no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.

Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.

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

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

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.

I’m gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they’re gonna like. It doesn’t really matter.

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.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.

I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.

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.

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

You call yourself what you want to call yourself.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

What people see on court is another side of me; it’s not me.

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.

I like to be creative.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

‚Born this Way‘ is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.

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.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

I think there is a little magic in the fact that I’m so totally real but look so artificial at the same time.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

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.

I want to look my best for God. So many people have the attitude that if you’re a Christian you’ve got to dress bad, wear an old color, not do anything to your hair, have nothing. It’s no wonder that Christianity is not very attractive. I mean, how many people do you know in a Western culture that’s going to go, ‚Yeah, give me some of that?‘

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

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

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 you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

I just want to be myself.

These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I’d be a damn‘ fool if they weren’t.

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

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 trust my taste. I trust it completely and I always have done, and I’ve always thought it isn’t that different from everybody else’s.

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.

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

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.