I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night.
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.
Some artists are working to buy the mansion or whatever the element of fame must bear, but I spend all my money on my show.
There is spontaneity to my work.
I want a baby from an Italian - possibly Sicilian - donor.
I was doing these performance art pop music pieces in the city. And they were a bit on the eccentric side I suppose. So people started to call me Gaga after the Queen song 'Radio Gaga.'
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 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 spend my money on my props and my creations. I'm an inventor.
Well, in order for me to be successful... In order to be a great artist - musician, actor, painter, whatever - you must be able to be private in public at all times.
Art is going to make a bigger comeback than ever. That's the upside to things getting challenging.
There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.
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've been searching for ways to heal myself, and I've found that kindness is the best way.
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 don't want to make money; I want to make a difference.
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.
People want to tear me down, they were going to knife me anyway.
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.
I am the center of attention in my job every single day; the thought of a wedding to me is exhausting. Why would I put myself through that?
I'm drawn to bad romances.
'Born this Way' is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.
I don't like celebrities; I don't hang out with them; I don't relate to that life.
I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go - that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.
My audience went, 'Wait, why is she singing jazz? What's going on?' And then they went, 'Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.' And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country.
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.
A record deal doesn't make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.
No press, no television. If my mom calls and says, 'Did you hear about?' I don't want to know nothing about anything that is going on in relation to music. I shut it all off.
If you don't feel safe as a child, you can't learn.
So there's nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who's cool hates - and then making it cool.
In case you're wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no... people think so because I sound so good.
I was called really horrible, profane names very loudly in front of huge crowds of people, and my schoolwork suffered at one point.
I want to - more than anything - to create a moment that people will never forget. Not for me, but for themselves. That's what I remember about great Super Bowl performances in the past, when you really get lost in the moment with your family.
Sometimes I think that there's a fine line between impressionistic and messy.
There is something in the way that we are now, with our cell phones, and people are not looking at each other and not being in the moment with each other, that kids feel isolated.
