Gaga’s bicep tattoo features a quote in German from Letters to a Young Poet. It was written by her favorite poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose philosophy of solitude she finds particularly poignant. She says that solitude is “something you marry, as an artist. When you are an artist, your solitude is a lonely place that you embrace.”

The quote’s translation sounds like this: “In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”