I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

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

I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

The drama and the trauma of the relationship you have when you’re 16 can mirror the one you have when you’re 26. Life repeats itself.

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

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.

Whatever has happened in my quest for innovation has been part of my quest for immaculate reality.

I’ve been called a recluse. There’s definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone.

I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains. I want to be this really fly 80-90-year old.

Won’t it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

To this day, some of my closest friends say, ‚Gaga, you know, everything’s great. You’re a singer; your dreams have come true.‘ But, still, when certain things are said to you over and over again as you’re growing up, it stays with you and you wonder if they’re true.

Why regret anything? Where does it get you to regret anything you’ve ever done in your life? It gets you nowhere. It’s a pathetic emotion that you can wallow in.

Barack knows the American Dream because he’s lived it, and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are or where we’re from or what we look like or who we love.

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

The diversity of India, of our civilization, is actually a thing of beauty, which is something we are extremely proud of.

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.

The American dream belongs to all of us.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

I don’t really read a lot of newspapers. I don’t pay attention to what is being said or written about me. I’ve had lots of experiences in the past when I got too much into it. That sort of diverts your focus.

My mother did not like children.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.

I can’t help the way you was born if you was gay.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

I believe in a passion for inclusion.

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

The little man is still a man.

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

Man’s enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

I would rather make my name than inherit it.

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don’t censor yourself, you end up with what you’re most concerned about, but you haven’t filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

If you try to protect yourself from pain, it becomes a stone in your heart. But the more you learn to face things, the more likely that stone can become a pearl.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.