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

I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.

They’re right to think that about me, because I’m the person most likely to sleep with my female fans, I genuinely love other women. And I think they know that.

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

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.

If you’re performing music that is not who you are or where you’re at, it is painful. It’s painful for the performer and for the audience.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

We can’t just choose to tell some facts and not others because we don’t want to upset people. We have to tell it like it is.

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

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.

I’m not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We’re not ‚celebrities‘, whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They’re what people meet.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

I love wearing whatever is comfortable, and that could be something which was in trend years ago. So, I don’t follow fashion.

I don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

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?

If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

If you’re trying too hard to be the girl next door, you’re not going to be.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

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.

In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn’t controversial, that means he never stood for anything.

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’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

There is a piece of me that likes to fondly imagine my maverick and rebellious nature. But, more accurately, I like to have a nice and cosy institution that I can rub up against a little bit.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

Freedom is relative.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

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.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

The essential lesson I’ve learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you’re not here as a human being only. You’re a spiritual being having a human experience.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

Everybody’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.

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

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

I go through a lot of depression, and I know other people do, too, but I have an outlet that so many people don’t. If you have that inside of you and can’t get it out, what do you do?

As the father of eight children, I’m quite convinced that each individual arrives here with their own unique personality. We are intended here from an invisible held of infinite potentiality. That which has no form, has no boundaries – it’s the I that’s in the ever-changing body.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

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.

I don’t want followers.

Jesus didn’t die for us so we could pretend to be something we’re not.

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

Old is authentic. Old is genuine. Old is valuable.

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

I’m not always going to say things the perfect way, the right way. But I’m going to say how I feel.

Like Frank Sinatra, I’m doing it my way.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

I’m a really particular person. I want it my way.

Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.

My life is real.