Top 66 Madonna Ciccone Quotes

I’m a showgirl. After 20 years in show business, I’ve learned to roll with the punches.

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 have my work and my faith… If that’s boring to some people, I can’t tell you how much I don’t care.

I think it’s fun to get in a room and sweat with people. I’m happy to share my workouts with everyone.

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 believe sometimes we aren’t always in charge of everything that we do creatively. We submit to things as we’re going on our own journey.

I always thought I should be treated like a star.

When I went to Africa, I was reduced to floods of tears every day.

I have the same goal I’ve had ever since I was a girl: I want to rule the world.

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 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 hope that I inspire women to believe in themselves, no matter where they come from; no matter what education they have; what particular background they originate from.

In this business, my business, I get to meet all kinds of incredible people, fascinating people, glamorous people and sexy people and highly intellectual people. And you meet them and you go ‘interesting, interesting, interesting’. They’re interesting, but not very many people stop you in your tracks.

I’ve always danced and exercised. I can’t imagine not doing it. I’ll be Martha Graham in my 90s doing contractions on the floor.

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’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 know there’s more to life than making lots of money and being successful and even getting married and having a family.

I refuse to act the way someone expects me to.

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.

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

When I left Michigan and I came to New York, that was my goal, to be a professional dancer. And I sort of fell into singing by accident in a way.

Growing up, I didn’t feel cool; I didn’t fit into any crowd.

One of the things that helps me tell a story through music is to create a character. I have to have a muse, whether it’s Frida Kahlo, Martha Graham, Marlene Dietrich, or Pippi Longstocking.

When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it.

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.

Prince Charles is very relaxed at the table, throwing his salad around willy-nilly. I didn’t find him stiff at all.

I had decided that if I was going to be a singer, I had to earn it. I had to learn how to play an instrument.

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 think a lot of people have a problem with the fact that I’ve adopted an African child, a child who has a different color skin than I do.

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

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.

I wear the Jewish star, but I’m not – I haven’t converted to Judaism, and I’m not – I’m not – I’m not Jewish in the conventional sense because the Kaballah is a belief system that predates religion and predates Judaism as an organized religion.

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

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.

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

My physical transformations – like changing my hair – are usually a reflection of what’s inspiring me at the moment.

I guess some people are brilliant enough to be brilliant on their own and never doubt anything and come up with fabulous things. But I think it’s good to get into arguments with people and have them say, ‘That sucks’ or ‘You’re crazy’ or ‘That’s cheesy’ or ‘What do you think of this?’

One thing I’ve learned is that I’m not the owner of my talent; I’m the manager of it.

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

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.

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.

Making movies is really hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

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.

People like it when others are gossiping. When you hear a story about someone’s demise or some big faux-pas they made, everyone wants to tune into it, because it’s nice to know that someone else made a mistake. It makes you feel elevated for a moment.

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

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

Being famous has changed a lot, because now there’s so many outlets, between magazines, TV shows, and the Internet, for people to stalk and follow you. We created the monster.

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.

If I can’t be daring in my work or the way I live my life, then I don’t really see the point of being on this planet.

You realise that having a number one record and being loved and adored isn’t the most important thing in the world. But at the same time, I don’t have a problem with it. What I’m trying to say is, I’m not a reluctant pop star.

Because I was a dancer, I started going to auditions for musical theater, which forced me to sing.

I went to the University of Michigan for one year, and fortunately they had a foreign-film cinema, and I discovered it, and I thought I died and went to heaven.

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

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 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.

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 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 tend to write during the day so I can see my children at night. But if my kids aren’t with me and I have a chunk of time when I’m a single woman living in my house for a miraculous week, I will get to write at different hours.

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.