I wanted to only create a great perfume, not any perfume that would sell, but a great artistic one that the fans would not feel cheated by.

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.

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.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

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

Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

I think I have the nicest fans in the world, and I quite like being surrounded by people if we’re all feeling the same emotion in the same room.

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’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

My goal was never to make Facebook cool. I am not a cool person.

I actually don’t want a throne at all, because I don’t view myself as a queen; I view myself as one of my fans.

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.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

Most of my fans, if you were to look on their iPods, you’d see every possible genre of music represented in some capacity.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

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

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

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

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.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

If you consider the definition of authenticity, it’s saying something and actually doing it. I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

I’m very active on social media and see the huge impact it has on engaging with fans and being able to have a voice.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

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.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

I’d rather tell you how I really feel.

Every man should know, if you’re comfortable and you like it, you should do it. Everyone always worries about what the girls think, what the guys think. If you like it, do it.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I’ll give you an example; I don’t read what’s handed to me. People say, ‚Here, here’s your speech, or here’s an idea for a speech.‘ They’re changed. Trust me.

Rather be dead than cool.

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’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.

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

I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 – for albums, anyway.

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

Thanks to my fans that have been with me from the beginning, I was able to sell out arenas on my own.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life.

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.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

I was always singing but didn’t plan on pursuing it seriously. When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

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.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

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 don’t believe in doing things to manufacture my body to appeal to what I think people might like.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.