I’ve never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that – of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.

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

I write all of my own speeches.

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

Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.

I’ve been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don’t need to write a book for adults.

Everyone has their style and your style explains a lot about who you are – you feel me? I’ve had style since childhood, so I like to dress how I feel. But maybe I get carried away by some trends.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

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.

I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.

An artist or a creative person of any kind goes about their work because it’s their path, it’s what excites them, it’s what aligns their soul with who they truly are, who they showed up to be.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

Art is the proper task of life.

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.

My apartment is my stage, and my bedroom is my stage – they’re just not stages you’re allowed to see.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

I can express myself.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

I wanted to write.

You have to give others the opportunity to love who you love. If they don’t accept it, it’s their loss.

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

I’d always tried to resist playing the supervirility thing. I liked showing the vulnerability of age.

I go to all these photo shoots, and each time I figure out something new about myself and what I want to wear.

I love tattoos. And mine symbolise who I really am. I have a Samurai on my left arm. At a subconscious level, I connect to this warrior and model myself on his discipline, skills and honour. There is also a tribal tattoo and a Chinese symbol of faith. I have seen a lot of people getting tattoos just because it’s a trend.

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.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m just a guy who can write.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

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?‘

Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

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.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

I don’t really like to call myself a brand, and I don’t like to think of myself as a brand. I’m a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that’s not my focus.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

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

I am criticised for not celebrating my goals enough. I am very happy from within, very calm. I just don’t celebrate. I celebrate inside.

All of my music is honest.

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

I look like a woman, but I think like a man.

I’m not a person who defends myself very often. I kind of let my actions speak for me.

Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.

I am an introvert; privately I am very shy, and I don’t speak unless I have to.

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

I’d like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.

My whole life is a theater piece.

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