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

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

Ever since I started to get recognition I’ve picked out certain fans and reverse-stalked them.

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.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

We’re so trendy we can’t even escape ourselves.

I just hope people don’t get sick of us. I’m sick of us and I’m in Destiny’s Child.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you.

India does not need to become anything else. India must become only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called the golden bird.

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I’m much more expressive off stage.

I never intended for the Monster Ball to be a religious experience, it just became one.

Sometimes a nickname is used instead of the real name. But a nickname may offend either the one named or the parents who gave the name.

I really like Lady GaGa and everything she is for her fans.

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

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

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

Getting recognized is insane. It just blows my mind. Like, someone who you don’t know at all can just be like, ‚Oh my God – are you Billie?‘

We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.

If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.

I’ve been invited to do ‚Dancing With the Stars‘ three times, but Lifetime said no.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

I think the message has already been sent to Hollywood, which is that this kid’s a hard worker, he’s talented, and people are coming out to see him. And when you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up.

The voice I use is a very old hardware speech synthesizer made in 1986. I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it.

You don’t go to Notre Dame to learn something; you go to Notre Dame to be somebody.

WWE asked me to be in the Hall of Fame, and I turned it down. You know why? They put Pete Rose in the wrestling Hall of Fame. This guy can’t even get into his own Hall of Fame.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

You know, when you don’t go on TV and talk about how many women you sleep with, some people in Hollywood, that are supposedly ‚in the know,‘ start whispering that you’re gay. If I were gay, I wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it, but I’m not.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

Before ever meeting Priyanka Chopra, I had heard her name coming out of Bollywood and was impressed: she was beautiful, talented, had made nearly 50 movies, earned multiple awards – a massive star.

One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity. Some things will be, but not everything will have to be, because there are some sets of experiences that are just better with other identities.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

Barack Obama did tell me that I was one of Michelle Obama’s favorite actors.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

What people see on court is another side of me; it’s not me.

This man is frank and earnest with women. In Fresno, he’s Frank and in Chicago he’s Ernest.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

Really, who you are is defined by the people who you know – not even the people that you know, but the people you spend time with and the people that you love and the people that you work with. I guess we show your friends in your profile, but that’s kind of different from the information you put in your profile.

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

I just dress like… I’m an old black man. Sorry! Like I’m an old Jewish black man. I just dress like it’s still the ’50s.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

I was doing these performance art pop music pieces in the city. And they were a bit on the eccentric side I suppose. So people started to call me Gaga after the Queen song ‚Radio Gaga.‘