I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously.

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

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

I’ve seen zero evidence of any nation on Earth other than Mexico even remotely having the slightest clue what Mexican food is about or even come close to reproducing it. It is perhaps the most misunderstood country and cuisine on Earth.

I’ve just tried to grow up in the most natural and gradual process that I possibly can and make choices I feel are right for me and my fans.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

I leave the genre labeling to other people. I really do. If I were to think too hard about it, that would stifle you creatively. If you think too hard about who other people want you to be as an artist, it stops you from being who you want to be as an artist.

I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.

Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way, you are justified.

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

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I’m conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

It’s true the punk fashion itself was iconographic: rips and dirt, safety pins, zips, slogans, and hairstyles. These motifs were so iconic in themselves – motifs of rebellion.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don’t do things to shock people. I’m not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this planet. So while I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

I’m always attracted to people who interest me. They’ve got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They’re interested in people.

I’ve been reckless, but I’m not a rebel without a cause.

I think that it’s okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn’t about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

I’m not always going to say things the perfect way, the right way. But I’m going to say how I feel.

I don’t do things for the response or for the controversy. I just live my life.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

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

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.

I don’t feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I’ve always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don’t fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

Once you’ve changed who you are or who you’ve portrayed in your music, the fans, they’ll catch it… Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music, then I feel like I failed.

The worst crime is faking it.

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

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

I don’t know that you can put a label on growth. I’m just me.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

I don’t have to show anything to anyone. There is nothing to prove.

We can’t just choose to tell some facts and not others because we don’t want to upset people. We have to tell it like it is.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

Whether I’m running on the beach without my shirt or whether I’m going out with my kids or going to church or going out to dinner – I don’t choose to insulate myself in engaging in real life. Hence, the public kind of almost knows me as much through my real life that they see through the rag mags.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history, looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion.

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.

Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

You see, rebellion, and the disobedience it causes, keeps us from having the power of God that’s available to us as Christians.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

If you’re performing music that is not who you are or where you’re at, it is painful. It’s painful for the performer and for the audience.

Everyone assumes I practise all of my own laws but I don’t. I think anybody who did would be a horrible ugly person to be around.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.