I am a walking piece of art every day, with my dreams and my ambitions forward at all times in an effort to inspire my fans to lead their life in that way.
— Lady Gaga
I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don't live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.
When you're around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it's not strange, it's just Gaga.
So there's nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who's cool hates - and then making it cool.
What I've learned is that you really don't need to be a celebrity or have money or have the paparazzi following you around to be famous.
I hope that what you take away from my album is not just the music - which I did want to be fun, and I did want it to be about individuality, but please also take away from it that there's no dream that's too big.
The instrument that I never learned how to play was my fans. You know, they are the part of the story that nobody teaches you. I just want to do the right thing; I want to be a voice with them, among them.
Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.
I like pushing boundaries.
I'm working on bringing the instant film camera back as part of the future.
I don't like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I'm from New York. I will kill to get what I need.
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 work very hard, but when God opens that door for you - when life opens that door for you, I should say - I think it's important to be giving, to return the love back.
If you only believe that you're an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that's quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.
Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, 'What kind of music do you make?', and you say, 'Pop music.' You may as well have 'I'm not cool' stamped on your forehead.
I've been actually really very pleased to see how much awareness was raised around bullying, and how deeply it affects everyone. You know, you don't have to be the loser kid in high school to be bullied. Bullying and being picked on comes in so many different forms.
'Born this Way' is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.
When the whole world has their eyes on you, if you say something that doesn't truly come from your spirit and your soul, or if you wear something that doesn't come from your spirit and your soul, it's an injustice to your position. And so, I'm really myself every single day and I do it because I know my fans would want me to.
I had this dream, and I really wanted to be a star. And I was almost a monster in the way that I was really fearless with my ambitions.
I guess you could say I devoted myself so strongly to my music that for awhile I forgot about my family. But I only get one set of parents, and I think I forgot about that for a little while.
I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer and to - as my father puts it - finally have a real job.
What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth-and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love.
I don't think I could live without hair, makeup and styling, let alone be the performer I am. I am a glamour girl through and through. I believe in the glamorous life and I live one.
It's hard knowing who to trust with your personal life. When you cry in your room at night, you don't always know who to call. So I am very close to my family.
A record deal doesn't make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.
I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn't exist without the performance-art element.
If you are not being bullied all I would say - cause I like to talk about the other side of it as well - is you know, be someone that nurtures, and if there's someone in your class that maybe doesn't have a lot of friends, be the person that sits with them in the cafeteria sometimes; be the bigger person.
I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.
I was performing in New York and my friends started to call me Gaga, they said I was very theatrical and they said, 'You're Gaga'.
In a sense I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny.
I'm definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I'm really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid.
I've had grand pianos that are more expensive than, like, a year's worth of rent.
Lady Gaga is my name. If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don't really know me at all.
