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.'

If you don't feel safe as a child, you can't learn.

I don't know that my schooling was conducive to wild ideas and creativity, but it gave me discipline, drive. They taught me how to think. I really know how to think.

I’m not a vomit in the club kinda girl.

I dropped out of NYU, moved out of my parent's house, got my own place, and survived on my own. I made music and worked my way from the bottom up.

I thought equality was non-negotiable.

O, say does that star-spangled flag of pride yet wave? O'er the land of the free, and the home for the gay!