I’m different from any other designer, businesswise, in that I’ve built this company up and I own it. I never had business hype behind me to promote my image… My image is real… I have never had marketing people telling me what to do.

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

Rather be dead than cool.

Live truth instead of professing it.

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

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.

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.

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

It’s important for me to let my fans know I really don’t care. I’m confident.

I don’t ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, ‚It sounds good!‘ It’s got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.

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.

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

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

There’s no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don’t try to adapt it, make it commercial.

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.

I feel like I might be a designer or stylist – or a director because I have always been super interested in cameras and editing.

I always have been an activist for things that were just authentically a part of my life, that I felt connected to.

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

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.

I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There’s no tricks. It’s honesty with big melodies.

Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.

Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world – not to win them, but to be like them.

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.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

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 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.

I’ve always been a loner.

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.

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.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

I can’t very well be teaching one way and living my life another way. What I do in life must be consistent with the things I say. And the same goes for you.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

I’ve definitely seen bands before they made money kind of change their thing on the next tour, and I prefer it when it’s a little more raw.

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

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.

I’m a human being. I’ve got opinions, I’m not always right, I’m not always on time, I don’t always say things in the proper way, but my intentions are always extremely pure.

I’m tough when I have to be, tender when I should be. When you find a really tough guy, he’s not a predator. He doesn’t have to prove himself. Guys who have to pretend to be tough, they ain’t. I’m tough.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

But, having a perfume and license, in general, is a financial necessity. A designer must, to reap back the money spent on prototypes and all that sort of thing.

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

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.

The people who truly know me know what I’m like. There have been people who try to say things that aren’t fair, and I check them. And then they don’t like me because I checked them.

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

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

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we’re alive it’s not going to change. You’ve got to be boisterous to get results.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

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

The truth is, I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves.

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

I’m an old man, and all my life I’ve said that Notre Dame should remain independent because it’s a national school.

Integrity means that you are the same in public as you are in private.

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.

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

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

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

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.