When I discovered that I could write music, it felt like the most natural way for me to connect with people and tell my stories. I've always thought of that as what I do: I tell stories.

I don't care if you hate me or love me, as long as I make you think.

With every breath, I'm deeper in you.

Catholicism is not a soothing religion. It's a painful religion. We're all gluttons for punishment.

I became an overachiever to get approval from the world.

I want to be like Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and John Lennon... but I want to stay alive.

I'm not interested in being Wonder Woman in the delivery room. Give me drugs.

I always acted like a star long before I was one.

Better to live one year as a tiger, then a hundred as sheep.

Power is being told you're not loved and not being destroyed by it.

As much good as it does, social media can also encourage stupidity and degradation.

I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable--but I always was so, only I never knew it!

Marriage is not essential to the contentment, the dignity, or the happiness of woman.

Perhaps of all the most basic elements of music, rhythm most directly affects our central nervous system.

How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?

I think everyone shares a fear of failure-that you're only as good as your most recent collection.

The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection are that a thing is your own and that it is your only one.

there is no fire without smoke but there is often smoke without fire.

The road of rock and roll (much like life) is littered with broken dreams and death. And it's our job to overcome these and to survive.

Revolutions are not made with literature. Revolutions equal gunfire.

The real Christmas comes to him who has taken Christ into his life as a moving, dynamic, vitalizing force. The real spirit of Christmas lies in the life and mission of the Master.