It’s very unnatural to be someone for so many people. But of course it’s very nice.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Lady Gaga is my name. If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

For me, it’s about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‚one size fits all‘ standard for happiness.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

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.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

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.‘

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

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

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.

The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that’s the most interesting: the part that doesn’t go according to what you expected.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the ‚leaders‘ must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.

Joanne‘ is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It’s a parallel thing in me.

Transforming yourself into a deep listener will not only prove more amusing as you open your mind to their mind, but you will gain the most invaluable lessons about human psychology.

When you face a ‚performance‘ that might provoke the ‚I’m scared‘ response, choose love and approach your opportunity as a chance to dance with God. It’s more fun than ‚Dancing with the Stars!‘

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

I don’t want to be called a point guard, but I can’t stop it.

I don’t want to be something that just comes and goes.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

The reward of suffering is experience.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‚blackness‘ than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong.

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

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

Robyn is who I am. Rihanna – that’s an idea of who I am.

Love is a better teacher than duty.

I love wearing whatever is comfortable, and that could be something which was in trend years ago. So, I don’t follow fashion.

What is true belongs to me!

Sometimes I feel like being an intellectual. Sometimes I like to just be aggressive and all the way in my feelings. Sometimes I might be emotional, or sometimes I might drag on the track and be lazy. I just like to share the different states of existence of Kevin Gates with the rest of the world.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

I want to look my best for God. So many people have the attitude that if you’re a Christian you’ve got to dress bad, wear an old color, not do anything to your hair, have nothing. It’s no wonder that Christianity is not very attractive. I mean, how many people do you know in a Western culture that’s going to go, ‚Yeah, give me some of that?‘

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

Freedom is relative.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

The true identity theft is not financial. It’s not in cyberspace. It’s spiritual. It’s been taken.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.