I want to be like Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and John Lennon... but I want to stay alive.
I know there's more to life than making lots of money and being successful and even getting married and having a family.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I go to Malawi twice a year. It's where two of my children were adopted from, and I have a lot of projects there that I go and check up on and children who I look after. It's sort of a commitment that I've made to this country and the hundreds of thousands of children there who have been orphaned by AIDS.
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 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.
I like to change. A new lamp, a piece of art, can transform a room.
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 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'm ambitious. But if I weren't as talented as I am ambitious, I would be a gross monstrosity.
Everybody in our family studied a musical instrument. My father was really big on that. Somehow I only took a year or two of piano lessons and I convinced my father to let me take dancing lessons.
I'm always looking for something new: a new inspiration, a new philosophy, a new way to look at something, new talent.
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.
There are moments when I can't believe I'm as old as I am. But I feel better physically than I did 10 years ago. I don't think, Oh God, I'm missing something.
I wouldn't live in Chicago cause it's too conservative, aside for the fact that Oprah Winfrey lives there.
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 think that everyone should get married at least once, so you can see what a silly, outdated institution it is.