In the Raphael Room, the secret turned out to be that only some of the paintings were made by the great master; the rest were made by students. I had liked the ones by Raphael. This was a big jab for my self-confidence in my ability to appreciate art.

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men’s lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

I think dress, hairstyle and make-up are the crucial factors in projecting an attractive persona and give one the chance to enhance one’s best physical features.

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.

It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.

You have to feel confident. If you don’t, then you’re going to be hesitant and defensive, and there’ll be a lot of things working against you.

Everybody wants to be me. What can I say?

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.

That’s all I could ever hope for, to have a positive effect on women. ‚Cos women are powerful, powerful beings. But they’re also the most doubtful beings. They’ll never know – we’ll never know – how powerful we are.

It was really hard for them to intimidate me. They felt I was intimidating. One of the growers had a name for me: I think it was ‚dragon lady‘ or something like it.

My only fault is that I don’t realize how great I really am.

I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.

Living in America and, of course, just being women in general, we’ve got more strength than we think we do.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

I always put myself out there. I’m not afraid to commit to something.

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you.

I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.

In the book of Gaga, fame is in your heart, fame is there to comfort you, to bring you self-confidence and worth whenever you need it.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

The earliest paintings I loved were always the most non-referential paintings you can imagine, by painters such as Mondrian. I was thrilled by them because they didn’t refer to anything else. They stood alone, and they were just charged magic objects that did not get their strength from being connected to anything else.

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

What destroys more self-confidence than any other educational thing in America is being assigned to some remedial math when you get into some college, and then it’s not taught very well and you end up with this sense of, ‚Hey, I can’t really figure those things out.‘

Our experience of any painting is always the latest line in a long conversation we’ve been having with painting. There’s no way of looking at art as though you hadn’t seen art before.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

I’m not sure what you need first – the players believing or others believing in them – but in the end, both have to think it.

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.

I see myself as the best footballer in the world. If you don’t believe you are the best, then you will never achieve all that you are capable of.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

I always say that women should wear whatever makes them feel good about themselves. That’s what I always try to do.

I often joke that 100 years from now I hope people are saying, ‚Dang, she looks good for her age!‘

In fact, my courage and my bravery at a young age was the thing I was bullied for, a kind of ‚Who do you think you are?‘

I go to school the youth to learn the future.

There are times when I prefer a cerebral moment with an artist, and I’ll just enjoy the wit of a Picabia or a Duchamp. It amuses me that they thought that what they did would be a good way of making art.

To excel at the highest level – or any level, really – you need to believe in yourself, and hands down, one of the biggest contributors to my self-confidence has been private coaching.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

You don’t carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.

I’m comfortable in my own skin, no matter how far it’s stretched. Ha ha.

Why is it you always meet people when you look your worst?

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don’t want to sign up for that.

I trust my taste. I trust it completely and I always have done, and I’ve always thought it isn’t that different from everybody else’s.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.

Millions of students now, in all the schools of America, are reading science fiction and especially, thank God, ‚The Martian Chronicles.‘

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

I have always thought I was the best ever player.

It takes more than just a good looking body. You’ve got to have the heart and soul to go with it.

If you have enough people sitting around telling you you’re wonderful, then you start believing you’re fabulous, then someone tells you you stink and you believe that too!

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

True politeness consists in being easy one’s self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I am not handsome or sexy. Of course, it’s not like I am hopeless.

If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me.