Quotes By Madonna Ciccone

There are moments when I can't believe I'm as old as I am. But I feel better physically than I did 10 years ago. I don't think, Oh God, I'm missing something.

Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.

I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want.

I hate being called a pop star. I hate that.

Everybody in our family studied a musical instrument. My father was really big on that. Somehow I only took a year or two of piano lessons and I convinced my father to let me take dancing lessons.

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 am the result of the good choices I've made and the bad choices.

I'm ambitious. But if I weren't as talented as I am ambitious, I would be a gross monstrosity.

People hear the soul, black influence in my voice. I grew up listening to CKLW and all the black stations like WLBS.

Catholicism is not a soothing religion. It's a painful religion. We're all gluttons for punishment.

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 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.

Things were a lot simpler in Detroit. I didn't care about anything but boyfriends.

I'm not interested in being Wonder Woman in the delivery room. Give me drugs.

I always thought I should be treated like a star.

I want to be like Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and John Lennon... but I want to stay alive.

Part of the reason I sort of shot out like a cannon out of Michigan and left home at such an early age is because I had to feel independent.

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 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.

If I was a girl again, I would like to be like my fans, I would like to be like Madonna.

But I love the idea - whether it's in my work or where I live - exploring new frontier, and I like putting myself in strange places and trying to survive and figure things out and gather up an infrastructure. I like knowing that I could figure out a way to live anywhere.

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.

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 think my biggest flaw is my insecurity. I'm terribly insecure. I'm plagued with insecurities 24/7.

As an artist myself, I know what it's like to put your heart and soul into something. You can feel the presence of another person.

I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.

A lot of places I go are dangerous, like Tel Aviv or Rio, but that never stops me from going there and putting on a show. I have good security. I don't worry about that.

If any of you have seen my shows, you know that I don't skimp on them and the same is true for the gym. We spend what it takes to make a globally first-class gym.

I get strength from my art - all the paintings I own are powerful.

On the one hand, the idea of marriage and the sort of traditional family life repulses me. But on the other hand, I long for it, you know what I mean? I'm constantly in conflict with things. And it is because of my past and my upbringing and the journey that I've been on.