When I’m surfing, I’m sure not thinking about the paparazzi. I guess if they start getting on floaties and coming out there in the water, then I might be a little upset.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

I’m a very private person. I don’t go out much. I’m home with kids. I go to work. I don’t really like being the focus of attention, which is why I like being behind the camera more.

I am not The Rock. I am Dwayne Johnson.

The biggest guru-mantra is: never share your secrets with anybody. It will destroy you.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

I do not see myself as a celebrity or an icon or things like that… I have not really done anything.

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

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.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.

A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.

I’ve never seen myself as a star. I never call myself a celebrity or a superstar, whatever.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

I like the city. I like the concrete. I like big business. I like being a CEO of my own company and having a lot of responsibilities. At the same time, when I can go off with a backpack or off on a surfboard or even off on a run somewhere in the woods – that’s where I’m really happy.

On the Internet, you think everything is going to be public.

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

I’ve never had that much trouble with the paparazzi, but I don’t run the same circles that a lot of these people that do get hounded by the paparazzi.

It’s dangerous when people are willing to give up their privacy.

I’m here to fight for the re-education of what celebrity is: to say, ‚Yes, we are celebrities, but yes, we’re also innovators. We’re also inventors. We’re also thoughtful.‘

Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it’s digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules – not just for governments but for private companies.

I have hobbies. I like being active. I like to surf a lot, play a little bit of golf.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?

I like to hide behind the characters I play. Despite the public perception, I am a very private person who has a hard time with the fame thing.

I’ve… been accused of being involved with every man I’m ever seen with or worked with. Maybe I have, maybe I ain’t. I never tell if I have.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.

If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?

I don’t want to be on the Internet.

There’s always been a lot of information about your activities. Every phone number you dial, every credit-card charge you make. It’s long since passed that a typical person doesn’t leave footprints.

The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.

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 were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‚Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?‘ I said: ‚Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.‘

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

I don’t think I’m supposed to boss other people around just because I’m a so-called celebrity or star. I hate that when people act that way. No one deserves it. I’ve seen it happen. I don’t call those people out – they know who they are. Some enjoy that reputation.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

I do not recognize the right of the public to break in the front door of a man’s private life in order to satisfy the gaze of the curious… I do not think it right to dissect living men even for the advancement of science. So far as I am concerned, I prefer a post mortem examination to vivisection without anaesthetics.

I think all documentaries leave out areas of people’s lives. Which is good. There are areas that need not be explored.

Ultimately, who you choose to be in a relationship with and what you do in your bedroom is your business.

I would never say I was an icon, but so many people have said I am, so I suppose I am. I mean, I can’t not be what everyone says I am. But I don’t feel like an icon.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.

I do get recognized, but I must say Edinburgh is a fantastic city to live if you’re well-known. There is an innate respect for privacy in Edinburgh people, and I also think they’re used to seeing me walking around, so I don’t think I’m a very big deal.

Whether I’m running on the beach without my shirt or whether I’m going out with my kids or going to church or going out to dinner – I don’t choose to insulate myself in engaging in real life. Hence, the public kind of almost knows me as much through my real life that they see through the rag mags.

I can walk through a hotel lobby and watch people at the desk and see what they’re doing. People don’t look at me. They don’t even know I’m there.

I don’t let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

If you look at my job, my union card, it says ‚actor.‘ It don’t say nothing about celebrity, movie star, nothing like that, and that’s one thing that keeps me humble.

You can use your real identity, or you can use phone numbers for something like WhatsApp, and pseudonyms for something like Instagram. But in any of those you’re not just sharing and consuming content, you are also building relationships with people and building an understanding of people.

The real question for me is, do people have the tools that they need in order to make those decisions well? And I think that it’s actually really important that Facebook continually makes it easier and easier to make those decisions… If people feel like they don’t have control over how they’re sharing things, then we’re failing them.

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

I’m a child of God first. Before I became a celebrity, I was baptized a Christian.

The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.

I don’t like people looking at someone else’s image.

I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized that to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.

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

My personal feelings are my personal feelings. I don’t want to express them with anyone except for a very few people. It doesn’t do any good. It really doesn’t.

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.

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.