I’ve had everything pierced at some point.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

I’m not a big fan of psychoanalysis: I think if you have mental problems what you need are good pills. But I do think that if you have thinks that bother you, things that are unresolved, the more that you talk about them, write about them, the less serious they become.

Ultimately, I’m not doing that much. I’m only doing what a human being who feels wants to do – in my way, without stepping out of my flow, while staying in my lane. Without, I guess, boring people.

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

I’m on the autism spectrum. I don’t usually follow social coding and so therefore I go my own way.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

It could be if I fight in front of one person or one million people. It’s still the same emotions.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

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

I write all of my own speeches.

In writing, I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation.

I have learned from personal experience that putting trust in God means there will be some unanswered questions. That was a hard lesson for me because I naturally want to understand everything… to know what’s going on so I can feel like I’m in control.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

In all my days of schooling, from preschool all the way up to 12th grade, there was not one white person in my class. Literally zero.

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.

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.

I like to be in control of how I look and how I feel and how I act.

Let’s embrace being not normal!

I still derive immense pleasure from remembering how many hod-carrying brickies were encouraged to put on lurex tights and mince up and down the high street, having been assured by know-it-alls like me that a smidgen of blusher really attracted the birds.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

People tend to think that because I’m a performer and I don’t go to a regular high school that I haven’t personally been affected by bullies. But it’s actually quite the contrary.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

It’s very hard to find your own words – and you don’t actually exist until you have your own words.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.

You know, I just do whatever feels right to me! And so that’s what you’re gonna get!

The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.

I’m no natural beauty. If I’m gonna have any looks at all, I’m gonna have to create them.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

I leave the genre labeling to other people. I really do. If I were to think too hard about it, that would stifle you creatively. If you think too hard about who other people want you to be as an artist, it stops you from being who you want to be as an artist.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.

Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand. I know what I believe. I’m confident in what I know. And I’m gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don’t like it, I understand.

In many ways, I’ve been writing personal stories all my life.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

I do have tatoos, and I do wear leather, but there are other sides of me, that my film express.

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

I’m terrified of losing my voice.

I’m gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they’re gonna like. It doesn’t really matter.

In my father’s generation, the product was 80 percent of what you were putting into the world, and your personal life was 20 percent. It now seems that 80 percent of the product I put out is silly, made-up stories and what I’m wearing.

I’m terrified of therapy because I don’t want it to mess with my creativity.

If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.

Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.