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

"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."
Madonna

"I wouldn't have turned out the way I was if I didn't have all those old-fashioned values to rebel against."
Madonna

"I've always wanted to be taller. I feel like a shrimp, but that's the way it goes. I'm five-foot four-and-a-half-inches - that's actually average. Everything about me is average. Everything's normal, in the books. It's the things inside me that make me not average."
Madonna

"I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art."
Madonna

"I hate polite conversation. I hate it when people stand around and go, 'Hi, how are you?' I hate words that don't have any reason or meaning. Also I hate it when people smoke in elevators and closed in places. It's just so rude."
Madonna

"I know the aspect of my personality, being the vixen, the heartbreaker and the incredibly provocative girl is a very marketable image - but it's not insincere. You just can't take it seriously."
Madonna

"In everyday life I am quiet and reserved, not the housekeeper type but cool and relaxed. I don't get up in the morning wearing false eyelashes and I don't wear fancy underwear when I'm cooking popcorn. I'm a nice little ducky."
Madonna

"I laugh at myself. I don't take myself completely seriously. I think that's another quality that people have to hold on to... you have to laugh, especially at yourself. I do it in most of the things I do, and most of the videos that I make and most of my performances. Even in my concerts there are so many moments when I just stood still and laughed at myself."
Madonna

"With the crucifixes I was exorcising the extremes that my upbringing dwelt on. Putting them up on the wall and throwing darts at them. And the 'Boy Toy' thing was a joke, a tag name given to me when I first arrived in New York because I flirted with the boys. All the graffiti artists wore their nicknames on their belt buckles."
Madonna

"Being blonde is definitely a different state of mind. I can't really put my finger on it, but the artifice of being blonde has some incredible sort of sexual connotation. Men really respond to it. I love blonde hair but it really does something different to you. I feel more grounded when I have dark hair, and I feel more ethereal when I have light hair. It's unexplainable. I also feel more Italian when my hair is dark."
Madonna

"I have the most perfect belly button. When I stick my fingers in it, I feel a nerve in the center of my body shoot up my spine."
Madonna

"I'd love to be a memorable figure in the history of entertainment in some sexual, comic, tragic way. I'd like to leave the impression that Marilyn Monroe did, to be able to arouse so many different feelings in people."

Madonna

"I don't take drugs: I never did. All the feelings that drugs are supposed to produce in you - confidence or energy - I can produce naturally. The only problem is going to sleep. But I never take pills... I drink herbal teas."
Madonna

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

"My having a child is not for public consumption. It's not a career move. It's not a performance to be judged or rated. Nor is my role as a mother." "Ever since my daughter was born I feel the fleetingness of time. And I don't want to waste it on getting the perfect lip color."
Madonna

"Lourdes really is the love of my life. I don't want to traipse around with nannies and tutors. I think it's important for children to stay in one place, to socialize with other children."
Madonna

"I could probably bring up a child as normal as I can live my life. I surround myself with people who don't treat me like a celebrity or a freak or whatever, and I would do the same with my child."
Madonna

"The last thing I want is to raise a brat. We could definately go down the wrong road. I don't want Lola to have everything she wants. I want her to appreciate things, and not to be presumptuous. I want her to have manners and social graces."
Madonna

"I liked my body growing up and I wasn't ashamed of it. I liked boys and didn't feel inhibited by them. Maybe it comes from having brothers and sharing a bathroom. The boys got the wrong impression of me at high school. They mistook forwardness for promiscuity. When they don't get what they want, they turn on you. I went through this period when all the girls thought I was loose and the boys said I was a nymphomaniac. The first boy I ever slept with was my boyfriend and we'd been going out a long time."
Madonna

"Romance should be spontaneous, but in my career I'm totally in control."
Madonna

"I'm a very old-fashioned girl. Marriage is a great thing when it's right. And I did celebrate it and embrace it, and I wanted the whole world to know that this was the man I loved more than anything. But there's a price to pay for that, which is something I realize now. Ever since I was in high school, when I was madly in love with someone, I was so proud of that person. I wanted the world to know that I loved him. But once you reveal it to the world - and you're in the public eye - you give it up, and it's not your own anymore. I began to realize how important it is to hold on to privacy and keeping things to yourself as much as possible. It's like a runaway train afterwards."
Madonna

"I do get depressed but not about the press. I'd have to be on the tablets not to be depressed. It's not so much that people are being anti-Madonna, but the fact that they are dwelling on something negative when they could be doing something positive with their lives."
Madonna

"I think the ultimate challenge is to have some kind of style and grace, even though you haven't got money, or standing in society, or formal education. I had a very middle, lower-middle class sort of upbringing, but I identify with people who've had, at some point in their lives to struggle to survive. It adds another color to your character."
Madonna