I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‚one size fits all‘ standard for happiness.

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

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.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

To the extent I am known, I think I am known as a person who expresses his opinion freely about things – and I was sensitive to the possibility that if I was seen taking money for saying nice things about a product, my comments and choices and opinions would become, understandably, suspect.

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

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that’s true to some degree.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

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.

A person who is truly authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but can simply be him – or herself.

It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different teams they’ve played on, coaches they’ve played for.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

You’re not going to scare me into being somebody I don’t want to be.

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.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

I’m crazy and I don’t pretend to be anything else.

I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

I don’t tell people, ‚You’re okay the way that you are.‘ That’s not the right story. The right story is, ‚You’re way less than you could be.‘

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 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.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Power is like being a lady… if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

The true identity theft is not financial. It’s not in cyberspace. It’s spiritual. It’s been taken.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

When you are young you tend to do so many things that are not needed. When you get experience, you know what exactly what works for you and you tend to do things that you want.

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

This above all; to thine own self be true.

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.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

Rioting is a childish way of trying to be a man, but it takes time to rise out of the hell of hatred and frustration and accept that to be a man you don’t have to riot.

I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour, but I’m not ashamed of anything.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

I don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

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

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

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

I need to keep working on myself for a while.

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

I look like a woman, but I think like a man.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn’t controversial, that means he never stood for anything.

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