The fashion I've acquired over the years is so sacred to me - from costumes to couture, high fashion to punk wear I've collected from my secret international hot spots. I keep everything in an enormous archive in Hollywood. The clothes are on mannequins, also on hangers and in boxes with a photo of each piece, and there's a Web site where I can go to look through everything. It's too big - I could never sort through it myself! But these garments tell the stories of my life.

Whether I'm wearing lots of makeup or no makeup, I'm always the same person inside.

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 want to change the pop world one sequin at a time. Artists tend to take themselves way too seriously and don't enjoy the fun of making an impact on culture. I just have a good time and sequins represent a good time.

Being a woman in the pop world, sexuality is half poison and half liberation. What's the line? I don't have a line. I am the most sexually free woman on the planet, and I genuinely am empowered from a very honest place by my sexuality. What's more primal than sex? I mean, it's so honest. If I didn't think I had the talent to back that up, I wouldn't have done it.

I was changing my outfits, my looks, my wig, sometimes several times a day. That's when I know my soul is restless.

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.