I’m very picky; I’m never happy with anything. It’s so hard to give the record away and accept that you’re done.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

The Lord can give, and the Lord can take away. I might be herding sheep next year.

Let’s embrace being not normal!

Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have only to look to the future.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Hate has no place in the house of God.

What’s done can’t be undone.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.

No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn’t create that – society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

Lord Jesus, we come just as we are; this is how we came at first, and this is how we come still, with all our failures, with all our transgressions, with all and everything that is what it ought not to be, we come to Thee.

A true man hates no one.

God just has a way of working things out the way he wants to and you have no say in that.

I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Me and my dad are friends. We’re cool. I’ll never be disappointed again, because I don’t expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that’s how we get along.

I have my flaws too, but I am a professional who doesn’t like to miss or lose.

A lot of stuff I do out of pure obsessiveness.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.

If you’re going to wake up early all the time, and you’re working hard, and you’re working out, sometimes you’re going to get tired. It’s OK. It’s acceptable – somewhat. We’re all human, unfortunately.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

Glam really did plant seeds for a new identity. I think a lot of kids needed that – that sense of reinvention. Kids learned that however crazy you may think it is, there is a place for what you want to do and who you want to be.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

If you’re waiting for the perfect moment, you’ll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There’s nothing foolproof.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can’t have.

In art the best is good enough.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

Dear friends, we may well sing to our Beloved when it is near the time of our departure. It draws near, and as it approaches, we must not dread it, but rather thank God for it.

Sometimes, you might meet somebody that you love that’s turning into a ‚they.‘ My key is invite them to Miami and take them to the ocean and let them jump off the boat in the ocean, on the sand bar, and cleanse off and pray and then go take a shower, and hopefully the ‚they‘ is out of you.

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 know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

Forgotten is forgiven.

Don’t say I hate institutionalised religion – rather than saying I hate those things, which I do not, what I’m saying is that perhaps there is a way of opening more doors, rather than closing so many.

You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

You have to give others the opportunity to love who you love. If they don’t accept it, it’s their loss.

Be happy with being you. Love your flaws. Own your quirks. And know that you are just as perfect as anyone else, exactly as you are.