My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don’t want it smoothed out.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

I don’t see myself in terms of artifice. I see myself as a real person who chooses to live my life in an open way – artistically.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.

Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world – not to win them, but to be like them.

Live-tweeting your bikini wax is not vulnerability. Nor is posting a blow-by-blow of your divorce . That’s an attempt to hot-wire connection. But you can’t cheat real connection. It’s built up slowly. It’s about trust and time.

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

I wanted to only create a great perfume, not any perfume that would sell, but a great artistic one that the fans would not feel cheated by.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

I don’t believe in doing things to manufacture my body to appeal to what I think people might like.

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

If I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I’m talking to people. It doesn’t always work, and one shouldn’t always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

Some of the kids in school used to call my father a fake or a phony. That kind of thing brought on a few fights.

Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

Friends accept you the way you are.

It’s important for me to let my fans know I really don’t care. I’m confident.

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.

Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

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.

I change my mind a lot. I usually don’t agree with what I say very much. I’m an awful liar.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

I think that it’s okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn’t about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

I don’t ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, ‚It sounds good!‘ It’s got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

I didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it’s sickening.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don’t let anyone persuade you to say it.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

I don’t have to show anything to anyone. There is nothing to prove.

A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.

Everyone assumes I practise all of my own laws but I don’t. I think anybody who did would be a horrible ugly person to be around.

For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

Rather be dead than cool.

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don’t.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

Sometimes you have the trends that’s not that cool. You may have certain artists portraying these trends and don’t really have that lifestyle, and then it gives off the wrong thing. And it becomes kinda corny after awhile. It’s really about keeping hip-hop original and pushing away the corniness in it.

I never do anything that I don’t want to do.

I always wanted a great love affair: something that feels big and full, really honest, and enough. No moment should feel slight, false, or a little off. For me, it had to be everything.

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.