It never mattered to me that people in school didn’t think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it – though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, ‚I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.‘

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

I have a self-defense mind. I’ve had it all my life.

Britishness is just a way of putting things together and a certain don’t care attitude about clothes. You don’t care, you just do it and it looks great.

I think I write in a fairly self-confident manner.

I’m a serious aficionada of country music – Reba McEntire, Toby Keith, Montgomery Gentry. I’ve even written some songs. They haven’t done anything of mine yet. But it’s only a matter of time.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.

Fashion fades, only style remains the same.

If you’re too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

The best fashion advice I’d say would be just to do what makes you comfortable and what makes you feel cute, and that’s how you’re gonna look your best ‚cause when you feel your best, everybody else can feel it, too.

There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself.

I kind of make a film for myself to sort of express myself.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.

We boil at different degrees.

I’m not always going to say things the perfect way, the right way. But I’m going to say how I feel.

I don’t worry. I don’t doubt. I’m daring. I’m a rebel.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

Fashion breaks my heart.

I never look at fashion magazines. I find them incredibly boring.

So many girls come up and say to me, ‚I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn’t even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I’m obsessed.‘ That’s the coolest compliment to me.

In an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem to destroy stability and prosperity, our country needs to regain its strategic footing. We need to bring the clarity to our efforts before we lose the confidence of the American people and the support of potential allies.

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

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.

It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

I’m not sure what I think about current fashion, though. A few years ago, I would have said it’s really, really bad and you hardly ever see anybody looking good. There must be some very good designers in the world.

I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

A person’s a person, no matter how small.

I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.

My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It’s when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.

I think tattoos are horrible. It’s like living in a Pucci dress full-time.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way.

If I can get my dress on, my weight is under control.

More than anything, I like a jacket. You can do anything with a great jacket, the bigger the better. You can have any silhouette underneath. It gives you an attitude. It makes a gown look cool.

I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.

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.

If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet. She was so attractive in what she was wearing.

Everyone calls me Bruno; they don’t ever call me Peter – that was just my government name.

I dressed more like a pop star, I suppose, rather than the traditional blazer and tall trousers other players went for.

You know, when Michael Jackson does the moonwalk, he’s showing off! When Prince or Hendrix do a guitar solo, it’s confidence! I would hate to be at a show and some nervous wreck is sweating up there and doesn’t feel like he deserves to be there.

Clothing & fashion are kind of my security blanket, almost.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

I’ve been writing poems since I was in the Navy – to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.

I guess I have a little bit of an ego. I’m confidently cocky, you might say.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.

You pay a certain penalty for going your own way. A lot of people think you’re nuts, and you’re not as popular with girls as you should be.

I know some people might think it odd – unworthy even – for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people’s poet so I write for the people.