The Queen's Wise Words

"If anyone wants to know, I never fucked anyone to get anywhere."

"I'm the Queen of Despair! Read the lyrics to my songs! I still indulge myself in lots of melancholy."

"Being popular in universal ways is no substitute for truly being loved."

"I wasn't rebelious in a conventional way. I wanted to be somebody."

"I like the Spice Girls. Every time someone says something bad about them, I say, 'Hey, wait a minute, I was a Spice Girl once'!"

"At lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want."

"I wanted to do everything everybody told me I couldn't ever do."

"Madonna is my real name. It means a lot of things. It means virgin, mother, mother of earth, someone who is very pure and innocent but someone who's very strong."

"If you're going to reveal yourself, reveal yourself."

"I think for the most part men have always been in control. So I think sex is equated with power in a way, and that's scary in a way. It's scary for men that women would have that power, and I think it's scary for women to have that power--or to have that power and be sexy at the same time."

"Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book."

"Things I felt two years ago are different today: I don't stay in the same place emotionally, and my music reflects that...It's nothing conscious--just a manifestation of my journey through life."

"I know what it's like to be incredibly famous. I know what it's like to be on top, and there are great things about it, and there are horrible things about it. And I know I can never be in that place and that time again in my life--my fame will take a different shape, a different form, and it will be what it will be."

"Because I've taken my clothes off in public doesn't mean that I've revealed every inch of my soul."

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

"Children always understand. They have open minds. They have built-in shit detectors."

"I don't let people take advantage of me, I don't drink myself into a stupor, and I'm not beholden to a man. I haven't had an easy life. But I'm a survivor."

"I've had some painful experiences with men in my life, just as I've had some incredible experiences. Maybe I'm representing more of the former than the latter. I certainly don't hate men. No, no no! Couldn't live without them!"

"As much as people complain and criticize me, I've touched a nerve in them somehow."

"I like innuendo. I like irony. I like the way things can be taken on different levels."

"I think that you can be a very sexual person and also a very religious and spiritual person. What's the problem?"

"When I was tiny, my grandmother used to beg me not to go with men, to love Jesus and be a good girl. I grew up with two images of a woman: the virgin and the whore. It was a little scary."

"I don't think you can ever love enough."

"Life is sad. And that's why I try to be happy, because life is so sad. And because sadness is a teacher, and happiness is really a gift."

"All I hope is that I will be happy in my personal life with my friends, my family and the person I'm in love with. That's the most important thing."

"I dislike men who totally suppress their femininity."

"I have always carried around a few rosaries with me. One day I decided to wear one as a necklace. Everything I do is sort of tongue in cheek. It's a strange blend--a beautiful sort of symbolism, the idea of someone suffering, which is what Jesus Christ on a crucifix stands for, and then not taking it seriously. Seeing it as an icon with no religiousness attached. It isn't sacrilegious for me."