W. H. Auden Quotes

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.

I play a character every day of my life, and I don't want to play a character as myself. They can judge me as an actress, not as a person. I'm not a spokeswoman for Anna.

For me, in some ways, my whole life is a bit performative and always has been - because I'm stared at and looked at everywhere I go.

There's more pressure to be famous for being yourself than if you're being a character.

There's my personal life, my sensitive side, and then me as a performer, sexy and energised and fun.

For me, there's no dichotomy between being shy or a performer, because I think it's more a way of slightly presenting a version of things to the world.

When I go on stage and perform, I'm an extreme version of myself.

To me, music is art and fashion is art, but fame? Fame isn't art, but the person you become when you're famous - your alter ego - that's art.

We all present a version of ourselves whether you've got a puppet on your hand or not. To actually be very real out there in a public way, why?

Sometimes I think people are famous because they're themselves and they do a role and you see them do it.

Being a celebrity has taught me to hide but being an actor has opened my soul.

Ice Cube is the piece of me that I give away to the public.

There's a personal me, there's an actor me and there's a star me.

The difference between me as Brian Warner or Marilyn Manson is just words. Same personality, sensibility, sense of humor, behavior. He is me.

I'm confident in who I am. I've come to a place in my life where I've accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That's just the way I've always tried to be. It didn't change when I became a star.

I've read a lot of different versions of myself - and all of them are true because it's all opinion, and they're as accurate as it can ever be. But I don't think that I've been deft at hiding parts of my personality.

The challenge for me as an actor is if you become a celebrity, you don't meet strangers anymore. And strangers are where we have our anonymity. And I believe it's essential for the soul to be anonymous, especially if you're going to be an actor.

Being an actor, you are recognized for being somebody else, whereas these books are distilled from me.

Singing is about telling a story. When you are onstage, you get to be your own self... When acting, you're someone else.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life.

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

My life has really been about writing, though some think it's all about once having been in a ball dress and having an odd life and marrying all the time. But it's the writing that's always been the point.

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.

There is a big difference between what I do onstage and what I do in my private life. I don't put my living room on magazine pages.

I would love to make my music and be completely anonymous, but that doesn't work. You can't have success and be faceless.