My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.

There are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show that they are Christians at all, or else we might mistake them for sinners, their actions are so like those of the ungodly.

Me don’t dip on nobody’s side. Me don’t dip on the black man’s side, not the white man’s side. Me dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

I feel Anglo-American.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

My biggest hobby is hanging out with my family and kids.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

I feel like I’m the kind of guy that would have kids before getting married. The first thing would be kids.

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

Funk, I don’t think I have anything to do with funk. I’ve never considered myself funky.

People change because of kids. They change how they eat. They change the way they think. They change the way they see one another.

My kids are the funniest two human beings there are.

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right. I say that to my kids every day.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he’s doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, ‚We’re black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we’re all brought up differently.‘

I always joke that my kids‘ favorite holiday is Father’s Day. They love the way I celebrate the occasion by writing each of them a thank-you letter and a generous check. It’s my way of letting them know how much I appreciate the great pleasure and privilege of being their dad.

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

The kids are old enough now – I just want to let them be kids. I don’t want to comment on them too much. They’re at an age where I just want to let them be kids.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

I know from having had a child, and from having been a child myself, that children will copy you.

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.

I don’t really like to call myself a brand, and I don’t like to think of myself as a brand. I’m a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that’s not my focus.

It’s almost schizophrenic who I portray in my music.

Kids are watching us. I experience it every single day. They hang on my every word, what I wear, what I say.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

My next baby will be my new record.

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

Like every parent, when you start your family, your life completely changes. And you completely live for someone else. I find that the most extraordinary thing. Your life is handed over to someone else. From that moment on, they come first in every choice you make. It’s the most wonderful thing.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters.

Plumbers can be masters, the guy who did my patio is a master, some people are masters at raising really great children.

Getting recognized is insane. It just blows my mind. Like, someone who you don’t know at all can just be like, ‚Oh my God – are you Billie?‘

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

I’m not who people expect me to be. I’m not Henry Kissinger.

I guess if I’m a product, either you’re chocolate, you’re vanilla or you’re butterscotch. You can’t be all three.

One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity. Some things will be, but not everything will have to be, because there are some sets of experiences that are just better with other identities.

There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.

To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

If you’ve ever hauled a 28-pound two-year-old around New York, you’ll find that men fold at the knees a lot quicker than women.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.