“It is not the position, but the disposition.”

Societies need to have one illness which becomes identified with evil, and attaches blame to its victims.

Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.

My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything.

Shouting has never made me understand anything.

Fear of sexuality is the new, disease-sponsored register of the universe of fear in which everyone now lives.

I want to be able to be alone, to find it nourishing – not just a waiting.

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.

A good book is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility what human nature is of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.

Self-respect. It would make me lovable. And it’s the secret to good sex.

Art is a form of consciousness.

Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours.

One can never ask anyone to change a feeling.

Being in love means being willing to ruin yourself for the other person.

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.

Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once, and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you.

The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes.

People will always talk, so lets give them somethin’ to talk about

I know not everyone will like me, but this is who I am so if you don’t like it, tough!

My heart is full of love but please don’t get in my way.

To everyone who says this is wrong to feel like this say, ‘I was born this way baby.

I don’t like defining myself. I just am.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. Then I say,’Bitch, you’re Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today.

All that ever holds somebody back, I think, is fear. For a minute I had fear. Then I went into the dressing room and shot my fear in the face.

I’m obsessively opposed to the typical.