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.

I want kids to know: Don’t wait for somebody to come along and tell you you’re special. Because that may never happen.

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

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

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?‘

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

The problem with fine art is that in most cases people have to make a special excursion to go and look at it: they can’t afford to own it. So it isn’t really part of their life in the way that music can be.

I still think I am the greatest.

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

Don’t ever play yourself.

Above everything else I’ve done, I’ve always said I’ve had more guts than I’ve got talent.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared much what others think.

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.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

Honestly, I could care less about other people’s opinions about me.

As a medical doctor, I have known the face of adversity. I have seen much of death and dying, suffering and sorrow. I also remember the plight of students overwhelmed by their studies and of those striving to learn a foreign language. And I recall the fatigue and frustration felt by young parents with children in need.

I consider myself to have one of the greatest voices in the industry.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

I believe that I’m one of the best in the world at what I do, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.

Everybody wants to be me. What can I say?

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.

It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

You don’t have to be somebody different to be important. You’re important in your own right.

Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness.

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

I was told that someone on Facebook said something ‚horrible‘ about me. Who cares? At least they’re watching the show.

‚They‘ are the people that don’t believe in you, that say that you won’t succeed. We stay away from ‚They.‘

Studies have identified a significant ‚skills gap‘ between what students are currently being taught and the skills employers are seeking in today’s global economy. Our children must be better prepared than they are now to meet the future challenges of our ever-changing world.

NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve. It’s sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

If I’d been born ugly, you’d never have heard of Pele.

The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.

The bulk of the universities are about teaching kids.

It’s not a science when you are judging art, but we’d be remiss to say you can’t look at something and say, ‚This is more well done than that.‘

Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

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.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

I always hated how I looked on camera. I never put a face to my music, which actually made the music that much more mysterious.

I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.

I’m not going to say I’m cool, because I don’t really feel that. I just don’t care at all, and I guess that’s what people think is cool.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

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.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

In judging of a beautiful statue, the aesthetic faculty is absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are powerless to help us.

Life’s too short to deal with other people’s insecurities.

Some guys look better as they get older.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

I know who I am, I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.

That’s when you know you’re the greatest: when you’re the greatest, and people still put odds against you.

I’m interested in Jackson Pollock’s kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it’s nothing, and yet it’s incredible.

I walk tall; I got a tall attitude.

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

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