Madonna Ciccone
I don't like rooms you never use or that are wasted space but I also like a sparseness and a cleanness.
I think that everyone should get married at least once, so you can see what a silly, outdated institution it is.
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.
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.
When you're 25, it's a little bit easier to be daring, especially if you are a pop star, because eccentric behavior is expected from you.
I have a funny relationship with religion. I'm a big believer in ritualistic behavior as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. But I'm not a big fan of rules. And yet, we cannot live in a world without order.
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 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.
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'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.
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 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.
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.
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 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 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've always been acutely aware of differences and the way you are supposed to act if you want to be popular.
Making movies is really hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.
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.
We like to put people on a pedestal, give them one character trait, and if they step outside of that shrinelike area that we blocked out for them, then we will punish them.
One thing I've learned is that I'm not the owner of my talent; I'm the manager of it.
I'm a showgirl. After 20 years in show business, I've learned to roll with the punches.
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.
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.
When I went to Africa, I was reduced to floods of tears every day.
I want to give a child a life who wouldn't be given a life. I want a child that nobody else wants.
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.
Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross and the Jackson 5, that's what I grew up on.
Growing up, I didn't feel cool; I didn't fit into any crowd.
Because I was a dancer, I started going to auditions for musical theater, which forced me to sing.
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 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.
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.
I think of myself as a performance artist. I hate being called a pop star. I hate that.
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.
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.
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 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.
I think it's fun to get in a room and sweat with people. I'm happy to share my workouts with everyone.
I'm guilty of eating Magnum bars before I go to sleep at night.
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.
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 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.
I know there's more to life than making lots of money and being successful and even getting married and having a family.
Writing is a very intimate thing, especially when you write lyrics and sing them in front of someone for the first time. It's like a really embarrassing situation. To me, singing is almost like crying, and you have to really know someone before you can start crying in front of them.
When I first moved to New York, I wanted to be a dancer. I danced professionally for years, living a hand-to-mouth existence. I never tapped into nightlife; all I knew was dancers. We went to bed early and got up early and went to free concerts at the Lincoln Center and Shakespeare in the Park.
Where you record is very important. It can't be too nice, it can't be too expensive, it can't have a view to an ocean or a field.
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.
The thing about dancing - what it taught me all those years - is it gives you an amazing sense of discipline in forcing yourself to do things that you know are good for you but you don't really want to do.