Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.
Madonna Ciccone
Be strong, believe in freedom and in God, love yourself, understand your sexuality, have a sense of humor, masturbate, don't judge people by their religion, color or sexual habits, love life and your family.
I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.
I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.
One thing I've learned is that I'm not the owner of my talent; I'm the manager of it.
When I'm hungry, I eat. When I'm thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it.
I know I'm not the greatest singer or dancer, but that doesn't interest me. I'm interested in being provocative and pushing people's buttons.
I want to be like Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and John Lennon... but I want to stay alive.
With all the chaos, pain and suffering in the world, the fact that my adoption of a child from who was living in an orphanage, you know, was the number one story for a week in the world. To me, that says more about our inability to focus on the real problems.
I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want.
Growing up, I didn't feel cool; I didn't fit into any crowd.
I go to Malawi twice a year. It's where two of my children were adopted from, and I have a lot of projects there that I go and check up on and children who I look after. It's sort of a commitment that I've made to this country and the hundreds of thousands of children there who have been orphaned by AIDS.
I like to change. A new lamp, a piece of art, can transform a room.
I'm guilty of eating Magnum bars before I go to sleep at night.
Catholicism is not a soothing religion. It's a painful religion. We're all gluttons for punishment.
I didn't have many friends; I might not have had any friends. But it all turned out good in the end, because when you aren't popular and you don't have a social life, it gives you more time to focus on your future.
Obviously, I feel a great sense of responsibility being a good parent and raising my children. I don't take that job very lightly. Who they are, what they become and what they contribute to the world is very important to me.
I think my biggest flaw is my insecurity. I'm terribly insecure. I'm plagued with insecurities 24/7.
I really saw myself as the quintessential Cinderella. I think that's when I really thought about how I wanted to do something else and get away from all that.
I've never really lived a conventional life, so I think it's quite foolish for me or anyone else to start thinking that I am going to start making conventional choices.
I'm always looking for something new: a new inspiration, a new philosophy, a new way to look at something, new talent.
I live - I live a highly scheduled life. There's absolutely no time wasted. I'm very focused. And I have a great assistant.
I wouldn't live in Chicago cause it's too conservative, aside for the fact that Oprah Winfrey lives there.
When I went to Africa, I was reduced to floods of tears every day.
I believe that we are at a very low level of consciousness, and we do not know how to treat each other as human beings. We are caught up in our own lives, our own needs, our own ego gratification. I feel a strong sense of responsibility in delivering that message.
I just find the people I want to work with and put it all together, and it's a lot of hard work, and all kinds of catastrophes happen, but I don't really get too much resistance. But when you make a movie, it seems like there's nothing but resistance. It's kind of a miracle that any movie ever gets made.
I am the result of the good choices I've made and the bad choices.
I refuse to act the way someone expects me to.
I'm ambitious. But if I weren't as talented as I am ambitious, I would be a gross monstrosity.
My father was very strong. I don't agree with a lot of the ways he brought me up. I don't agree with a lot of his values, but he did have a lot of integrity, and if he told us not to do something, he didn't do it either.
Sometimes you want to go for a walk and you don't want to be watched. You just want to be anonymous and blend in. Especially when I travel, I feel that way, because I can't really go out and see a city the way other people can and I miss out on a lot.
I always felt like I was a freak when I was growing up and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't fit in anywhere.
In England especially, I've found that if you bring up King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at a dinner party or a social gathering, it's like throwing a Molotov cocktail into the room.
I was named after my mother. And I guess when I started making records, Madonna Ciccone seemed too long and complicated, and I just got stuck with Madonna.
I'm a showgirl. After 20 years in show business, I've learned to roll with the punches.
I think that everyone should get married at least once, so you can see what a silly, outdated institution it is.
Imagine if someone like John Lennon or Bob Marley, Sid Vicious, Picasso, whomever, were doing their work, and some corporation, some CEO, some branding entity was saying to you, 'Well, you can do that, but you've got to remove this aspect of your work.' There would no longer be that purity anymore.
I know there's more to life than making lots of money and being successful and even getting married and having a family.
I think the biggest reason I was able to express myself and not be intimidated was by not having a mother. For example, mothers teach you manners. And I absolutely did not learn any of those rules and regulations.
I'm opening gyms around the world to encourage people to get in shape and feel good about themselves; bringing art through dance to gyms to make my gyms different from other people's.
I grew up in a high school where it was very conservative, and I felt like people disapproved of me, and I felt like an outsider.
I like to think I'm a role model for women. But I also don't like to just limit it to women. I like to think I'm a role model for human beings in general.
I sometimes think I was born to live up to my name. How could I be anything else but what I am having been named Madonna? I would either have ended up a nun or this.
I suppose I sometimes used to act like I wasn't a human being... Sometimes I look back at myself and remember things I used to say, or my hairstyle, and I cringe.
I always thought I should be treated like a star.
When I first came to New York I was a dancer, and a French record label offered me a recording contract and I had to go to Paris to do it. So I went there and that's how I really got into the music business. But I didn't like what I was doing when I got there, so I left, and I never did a record there.
I think in the end, when you're famous, people like to narrow you down to a few personality traits. I think I've just become this ambitious, say-whatever's-on-her-mind, intimidating person. And that's part of my personality, but it's certainly not anywhere near the whole thing.
Of course, my interests and my focus change and become more diverse, more worldly. At the same time, I am interested in the simple basics, which is I love to dance and I love to make people dance.
I was more of a dancing kid than a singing kid. I mean, I sang in school choirs and I sang in school musicals, but I was much more interested in dancing than singing.
My physical transformations - like changing my hair - are usually a reflection of what's inspiring me at the moment.
