Madonna Ciccone

“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 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.”

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

“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.”

“I don't go to the sale rack. But I wouldn't say I am decadent in my spending. I am careful.”

“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 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.”

“If you have children, you know you're responsible for somebody. You realize you are being imitated; your belief systems and priorities have a direct influence on these children, who are like flowers in a garden.”

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

“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 love being a mother. My children fill me up in many ways, and inspire me in many ways, but I need a partner in my life, and I think most people feel that way.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I always thought I should be treated like a star.”

“I think of myself as a performance artist. I hate being called a pop star. I hate that.”

“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 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 always looking for something new: a new inspiration, a new philosophy, a new way to look at something, new talent.”