"I don’t think about how much longer, I just keep looking forwards. Onwards and upwards – that’s always been my motto. I feel better now that I have in my entire life"
Carrie: I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love. And I don't think that love is here in this expensive suite in this lovely hotel in
Carrie: You shouldn't have to sacrifice who you are just because somebody else has a problem with it.
Carrie: No matter who broke your heart, or how long it takes to heal, you'll never get through it without your friends.
Carrie: Maybe all men are a drug. Sometimes they bring you down and sometimes, like now, they get you so high.
That consciousness is everything and that all things begin with a thought. That we are responsible for our own fate, we reap what we sow, we get what we give, we pull in what we put out. I know these things for sure.
Madonna, O Magazine, January 2004
To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt.
Madonna, O Magazine, January 2004
MADONNA ON RELATIONSHIPS
"I don't have many women friends. It's because I haven't found many who are worldly wise and intelligent. Then again, I just seem to get on better with boys..."
"The first boy I liked was so beautiful. I wrote his name all over my sneakers and on the playground - I used to take off the top part of his uniform and chase him around."
"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."
"My first boyfriend was when I was, I guess... gee, I think 14 or 15. I fell in love with a boy named Russell. He was the only boy who would dance with me at school, because I was really wild at the high school dances and I danced completely insane and all the guys were afraid to ask me to dance with them because I basically ignored them anyway. But Russell was a wild dancer and he was a couple of years older and he was more sophisticated... so he was the one who had the courage really. So he won my heart, because he wasn't afraid of me..."
"Even after I made love for the first time, I still felt I was a virgin. I didn't lose my virginity until I knew what I was doing."
"I wouldn't like to sleep with a guy who was a virgin. I'd have to teach him stuff and I don't have the patience."
"When I turned 17 I moved to
"All my boyfriends turned out to be very helpful to my career. That's not the reason I stayed with them. I loved them all very much. I'm not Alexis from Dynasty."
"All the men I stepped over to get to the top... every one would have me back because they all still love me and I love them."
"I dig skin, lips and Latin men."
"I live for meeting with men in suits. I love them because I know they had a really boring week and I walk in there with my orange velvet leggings and drop popcorn in my cleavage and then fish it out and eat it. I like that. I know I'm entertaining them, and I know that they know."
"I guess a lot of my hot-blooded and passionate temperament is Italian. I like dark brooding men with rough tempers. Italian men like to dominate and sometimes I like to cast myself in the submissive role."
"Straight men need to be emasculated. I'm sorry. They all need to be slapped around. Women have been kept down for too long. Every straight guy should have a man's tongue in his mouth at least once."
"To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt."
"I've had some painful experiences with men in my life, just as I've had some incredible experiences. Maybe on Like a Prayer I'm representing more of the former than the latter. I certainly don't hate men. No, no, no. I couldn't live without them."
"Romance should be spontaneous, but in my career I'm totally in control."
"I prefer effeminate looking men and young boys. There are a lot of very sweet Puerto Rican boys where I live, and if it outrages people when we go out together that's fine by me. Fifteen or sixteen-year-old boys are the best and I like smooth men who aren't afraid to show their emotions and cry. I want to caress a nice smooth body, not a hulk."
"I can't conceive of living happily ever after or happiness for a long period of time with one person. I change so much and my needs change also."
"I guess you know you're in love when you finally decide that you want to make sacrifices for somebody else, and you want to give something up for somebody else, you don't just concentrate on yourself. Like the love that parents have for their children..."
"Marriage is a roller coaster."
"I think that everyone should get married at least once, so you can see what a silly, outdated institution it is."
"The best thing about being single is that there's always someone else. I wouldn't wish being Mr. Madonna on anybody."
"To me, Sean's love feels like a huge hand that comes around my whole body. Sometimes it's all furry and warm and sometimes it's all scratchy and it hurts."
"From the time we got married people couldn't make up their minds. They wanted me to be pregnant, or they wanted us to get a divorce. That put a lot of strain on our relationship too, after a while. It's been a character building experience, and a test of love to get through it all."
"I have to admit I do flirt a lot but I guess Sean knows that by now, flirting is part of my make-up. I'll flirt with anybody from the garbage man to grandmothers."
"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 ON HERSELF
"I would rather live one year as a tiger, than a hundred as a sheep."
"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."
"When I'm hungry, I eat. When I'm thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it."
"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 feel just as hungry today as I did the day I left home."
"I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art."
"I'm like a cockroach - you just can't get rid of me!"
"Sometimes I just assume that I'm going to live forever."
"They thought they would wake up one day and I'd go away. But I'm not going to go away."
"I won't be happy until I'm as famous as God. I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch - okay."
"In the beginning they thought that I was the flavor of the month, a one-act disco dolly who was just going to pop in and pop out. But slowly as the years go by I've been showing a little bit more of myself: One facet and then another."
"I've always been good at manipulating people and getting my way with charm."
"It's more than ego. It's an overwhelming interior light that I let shine without control. I am guarded by my instinct... it's both my faith and conscience."
"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."
"I've been called a tramp and a harlot and the kind of girl who would always end up in the back of a car."
"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."
"I have to listen to the criticism that I get when it's dealing with my work. It's beneficial, I guess I don't take criticism very well but it's getting better. If I do something and there's 100 people in the room and 99 people say they like it, I only remember the person who didn't like it."
"They used to say that I was a slut, a pig, an easy lay, a sex bomb, Minnie Mouse or even Marlene Dietrich's daughter, but I'd rather say that I'm just a hyperactive adult."
"When I get down on my knees, it is definitely not to pray."
"The maid comes three days a week and on the days she doesn't I make my own bed. I've even been known to wash my own clothes."
"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."
"No matter what I do, there will always be people who think of me as a little disco tart."
"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."
"It's healthy for me to force myself to move about independently. It helps me touch base with reality. I could never live a sheltered life... That would drive me insane."
"My biggest fault in impatience. I just can't stand waiting. I always want everything right away. Nothing came as fast as I wanted it to."
"I have mixed emotions about the way I look. I wish I was taller. I probably look taller 'cause I've got such a big mouth. I think it's important to try and look larger than life if you're a performer."
"Oh... I can be a bitch. Deep down inside I'm really a nice girl. But, certainly, I can be a bitch. I'm a perfectionist, and I'm under lots of pressure. Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done."
"I think I stand for a whole lot of things in fans' minds, a lot of kinds of stereotypes, like the whole sex-goddess image and the blonde thing. But mainly I think they feel that most of my music is really positive, and I think they appreciate that, particularly the women. I think I stand for everything they're really taught not to do, so maybe I provide them with a little bit of encouragement."
"I am ambitious. But if I weren't as talented as I am ambitious I would be a gross monstrosity. I am not surprised by my success because it feels natural."
"I'm a terrible cook. I just wait for someone to take me out to dinner. I like Japanese and French food."
"I'm very indecisive: yes - no - yes. In my career I make pretty good decisions, but in my personal life I cause constant havoc by changing my mind every five minutes."
"When your name is Madonna it's best to become one."
"I think I have an original sense of style, and I think that people are unconsciously copying my style. My style is a combination of a lot of things and maybe theirs is too. Either it's coincidence or they're copying my style - it's just obvious. But sometimes, when you see people do that, it's really cute, you know? But sometimes it isn't."
"I act out of instinct, just like an animal. Suddenly I couldn't stand all that hair of mine and all those baubles any more. That image had to be cleaned thoroughly. My new look is innocent, straightforward and feminine. I feel perfectly at home in this new skin."
"I live in a huge loft - 2,000 square feet - in Soho in
"
"My image is a natural extension of my performance so my songs may not be deliberately sexual but the way I achieve them could be."
"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
"I like clothes you can move about in - I don't like it when someone looks as if they're glued in their outfit."
"Exercise is absolutely necessary for me because I don't dance anymore."
"I like having a supple body. It allows you to move more easily, and it's also visually more appealing."
"Basques are restricting. They have ribs that make you feel you're suffocating."
"Bruce Springsteen was born to run. I was born to flirt."
"I'm sexy. How can I avoid it? That's the essence of me. I would have to put a bag over my head and body but then my voice would come across. And it's sexy."
"Losing my virginity? I thought of it as a career move."
"I think my voice sounds innocent and sexual at the same time. That's what I tell people anyway, but they look at me and go, 'Innocent, huh?'"
"Sex symbol? I guess I would be perceived as that, because I have a typically voluptuous body and I express sexual desire without really caring what people think about me."
"Books are my next favorite thing... after kissing."
"I can go for nights without sleeping if I'm not working on anything specifically, but if I'm doing a tour or working on a film I really have to be on the ball so I make sure I get to bed early. I need at least six hours sleep so I have to cut down on my social life if I want to feel good the next day. When I occasionally get eight hours sleep I find it hard to believe."
"I work at not being self-destructive."
"The thing is, I wouldn't even be blonde now except that I'm doing Dick Tracy and I had to dye my hair blonde. It took me so long to grow my hair out and I really wanted to have dark hair. I felt kind of great having my own hair color for the first time in years. Women with blonde hair are perceived as much more sexual and much more impulsive... fun-loving but not as layered, not as deep, not as serious."
"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."
"I'd like to see every teenage girl in
"I'm proud of my trashy image - my clothes come from the street."
"I think I always make the worst dressed list. It's just silly. But it is kind of nice having something you can always depend on."
"I've changed my image. If you spend a couple of years wearing lots of layers of clothes and tons of jewelry, it takes you forever to get dressed. And if your hair is long and crazy, you just get the urge to take it all off, strip yourself down and cut your hair just for relief. Everybody does that, you know."
"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."
"I would like to write a searing love story, probably semi-autobiographical, you know, because it's best to draw on your personal experiences."
"I never remember feeling tormented for my name. But then I went to Catholic schools. It wasn't until I came to
"My mother is the only other person I have heard of named Madonna. When I got involved in the music industry everyone thought I took it as a stage name. So I let them think that - it's pretty glamorous."
"I worry about worrying too much. I worry too much about what other people think. I worry about hurting people and I do it a lot, though not intentionally. And I worry about living up to my own expectations. That's helped make me a very determined individual but it's also made me too much of a manic about things and too hard on myself."
"I can be arrogant sometimes, but I never mean it intentionally. I can be really snotty to people but that's not anything new really. I always acted like a star long before I was one. If people don't see my sense of humor then I come off as being expensive, but I always endear myself to people when I find their weaknesses and they acknowledge it. It's the people who try to hide everything and try to make you think they're so cool that I can't stand."
"I'm vulnerable to people who want to rape my soul. You know, like journalists. It's weird - it depends on what kind of mood you're in. Sometimes I'll be doing a photo session with someone that I've done a lot of work with, and all of a sudden I feel like they've seen too much and I don't want them to look at me any more. Usually I'm pretty outgoing and gregarious, but I can be really shy about things sometimes."
"I remember the past when I can't go to sleep."
"I've never worn a jewel in my belly button, but if I did it would be a ruby or an emerald - not a diamond."
"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."
"That consciousness is everything and that all things begin with a thought. That we are responsible for our own fate, we reap what we sow, we get what we give, we pull in what we put out. I know these things for sure."
"I think if someone becomes hugely successful the public becomes disgusted with them and begins to wish the star would slip on a banana peel. That's the basic aspect of human nature."
MADONNA ON GROWING UP
"At family reunions I'd climb on tables and start dancing. If I didn't get people's attention that way I'd make some noise."
"I definitely lived out my fantasies playing with my Barbies. I dressed them up in sarongs and mini-skirts and stuff. They were sexy, having sex all the time. I rubbed them and Ken together a lot. And they were bitchy, man. Barbie was mean."
"I actually studied piano for a year but I quit. Actually my teacher made me quit because I never went to lessons, I used to hide in a ditch."
"My father was very strict and a disciplinarian - we had to go to church every morning before we went to school. When we got home we'd get changed, do our chores, do our homework and eat supper. I wasn't even allowed to watch television until late in my teens. My father didn't like us having idle time on our hands."
"If we didn't have homework he'd find us something to do around the house - he was very adamant about us being productive. My father came from a very poor family, his parents were Italian immigrants. He was the youngest of six boys and was the only one who got a college education so it was very important to him that we made the best of our educational opportunities. I turned down a scholarship to the
"When I was tiny my grandmother used to beg me not to go with boys, to love Jesus and be a good girl. I grew up with two images of women: the Virgin and the whore."
"At family reunions I'd climb on a table and start dancing. If I didn't get people's attention that way I'd make some noise."
"I felt really lonely and forlorn, even though my brothers and sisters were in the room with me. My mother had a beautiful red silky nightgown and I remember rubbing against it and going to sleep."
"My mother tried to keep her fear deep inside her and not let us know she had cancer. Once she was sitting on the couch and I climbed on her back and said, 'Play with me,' and she wouldn't. She couldn't. I got really angry with her and started pounding her with my fist and saying, 'Why are you doing this?' Then I realized she was crying."
"My father was a first generation Italian. My grandparents weren't very educated and I think in a way they represented an old lifestyle that my father really didn't want to have anything to do with. He got an engineering degree and wanted us to have a better life than we did."
"I've inherited some of my father's qualities - stubbornness and being a killjoy. If I go out with friends I'm usually the first one who wants to go home in spite of their protests. When we went to visit relatives my father would always want to go home instead of spending the night with them. That's my father in me."
"From when I was very young I just knew that being a girl and being charming in a feminine sort of way could get me a lot of things, and I milked it for everything I could."
"The thing is, if my father hadn't been strict I wouldn't be who I am today. I think... I think that his strictness taught me a certain amount of discipline that has helped me in my life and my career and also made me work harder for things, whether for acceptance or the privilege to do things."
"I left home at 17 and didn't go home that often. It's taken a few years to get close to my family again. There was a time when we weren't talking a lot. It wasn't a case of my just having to go away and make my own way in life. I just didn't feel that he'd truly understand or appreciate it until later... Now that I'm an established artist I think my father understands what I am trying to do."
"Madonna is my mother's name, she died when I was very young and I loved her a lot so that alone means a lot to me. She was sweet, beautiful and a hard worker. Sometimes I think about how like her I might be but I'll never know - I tend to romanticize and fantasize about it all the same. It's very rare for an Italian Catholic mother to name her daughter after her - especially as it's such a rare name - so I think maybe it was meant to happen that she died when I was so young. But somehow her spirit is inside of me... I don't know whether she can hear me but I tell her things that a girl can only say to her mother. Private things."
"One of the hardest things I've faced in my life was the death of my mother and that's something I really haven't gotten over to this day."
"That period when I knew that my mother wasn't fulfilling her role - and realizing that I was losing her - has a lot to do with my fuel, so to speak, my fuel for life. It left me with an intense longing to fill a sort of emptiness."
"It was hard to accept my stepmother as an authority figure and the new number one female in my father's life."
"As the oldest girl in my family, I feel like all my adolescence was spent taking care of babies. I think that's when I really thought about how I wanted to get away from all that. I saw myself as the quintessential Cinderella."
"When you're from a big family everybody's really competitive with each other, so aside form just screaming really loud and doing things that got me attention like... we would all get in various kinds of trouble to get my father's attention and then be punished accordingly."
"I was really competitive in school with my grades and stuff because my father used to give us rewards if we got 'A's on our report cards. It wasn't so much that I was interested in learning... my father gave us 25 cents for every 'A' we got so I wanted to earn the most amount of money."
"When I was a little girl, I wished I was black. All my girlfriends were black. I was living in
"We lived in a real integrated neighborhood. We were one of the only white families, and all the kids had Motown and black stuff. And they had yard dances in their backyards, little 45 turntables and a stack of records, and everyone just danced in the driveway and back yard... I really liked The Shirelles, The Ronettes, Martha Reeves And The Vandellas and The Supremes - they're the quintessential pop songs."
"I wanted to do everything that everybody told me I couldn't do... I couldn't wear make-up, I couldn't wear nylons, I couldn't cut my hair, I couldn't go on dates, I couldn't even go to the movies with my friends."
"Everyone in the family studied a musical instrument. My father was really big on that. Somehow I only took about a year of piano lessons and I convinced my father to let me take dancing lessons instead, so I escaped the dreariness of piano lessons every day which I despised. But there was always music in our house, either records or the radio or someone singing in the bathtub... noise. Lots of noise."
"I had a traditional Catholic upbringing, and I saw the privileges my older brothers had. They got to stay out late, go to concerts, play in the neighborhood. I was left out. Then, when I was dancing, most of the men were homosexuals, so I was left out again. Somewhere deep down inside of me is a frustrated little boy."
"My father and I get on very well right now. I mean, it's been up and down. You know, my father is not an incredibly verbal man, and that's been my frustration. He doesn't really express himself. And more than anything, I want my father's approval, whether I want to admit it or not. But he's always been very affectionate with me. I have a million different feelings about my father, but mostly I love him to death. What's difficult for my father is the idea that I don't need him. But I do need him."
"To my superiors I seemed like a very good girl. I was very good at getting into those situations where I was the hall monitor and I reported people who weren't behaving. And I used to torture people."
I wanted to be a nun. I saw nuns as superstars.... When I was growing up I went to a Catholic school, and the nuns, to me, were these superhuman, beautiful, fantastic people.
"
MADONNA ON MAKING IT
"I want to rule the world. Every time I reach a new peak, I see a new one I want to climb. It's like I can't stop. Maybe I should rest and admire the view, but I can't. I've got to keep on pushing. Why? I don't know. I don't know what motivates me. I just know I've got to do it."
"A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want."
"I think your parents give you false expectations of life. All of us grow up with completely misguided notions about life and they don't change until you get out into the world. It's like someone telling you what love or marriage is: you can't know until you're there and you have to learn the hard way."
"I really learned how to dance on my own. I watched television a lot and I used to try to copy Shirley Temple when I was a little girl. I used to turn on the record player and dance in the basement by myself and give dance lessons to my girlfriends in my five-year-old manner. As I got older I started giving lessons to boys too, and I remember the first guy I gave lessons to, the song was 'Honky Tonk Women' by The Rolling Stones... it was really sexy."
"It really annoyed me that most of the dancers I knew had such a simple-minded view of life. They were really closed up. They got up early, took dance classes all day, and then they went to rehearsal and ate healthy food. Then they went home and went to bed early. They did this every day and they didn't know anything about music or art; they just knew nothing and were completely ignorant."
"Most of the kids that I knew who were in my ballet class and stuff, were little bratty girls who stared at themselves in the mirror all day. I found myself doing the same thing, ultimately, I did that when I was living in
"All these girls would come to class with black leotards and pink tights and their hair up in buns with little flowers in it. So I cut my hair really short and I'd grease it so it would be sticking up, and I'd rip my tights so there were runs all over them and I'd make a big cut down the middle of my leotard and put safety pins all the way up it. Anything to stand out from them and say, 'I'm not like you, OK. I'm taking dance classes and everything but I'm not stuck here like you.' Eventually I said to myself, 'Well, if you don't like it Madonna, do what you want to do.' That's when I started exploring other territories and quit going to dance class every day."
"I used to finish school early and rush off to dance classes and I guess my ballet teacher became my introduction to glamour and sophistication. He was very Catholic and disciplined. He's the one who really inspired me. He kept saying, 'You're different' and 'You're beautiful.' He never said I'd make a great dancer. He just said 'You're something special'."
"When I was in tenth grade I knew a girl who was a serious ballet dancer. She looked smarter than your average girl in an interesting off-beat way so I attached myself to her and she took me to ballet classes. I met Christopher Flynn, a tutor who saved me from my high school turmoil. I loved him. He was a mentor and a father, an imaginary lover... he encouraged me to go to
"I used to run in late to my dance classes with ripped up leotards held together with safety pins. I loved doing things for the shock effect."
"I wanted to dance in
"When I left home and was poor I lived on popcorn, that's why I still love it. If I had a dollar to spare I'd buy popcorn, yogurt and peanuts. Popcorn is cheap and it fills you up."
"I was sacked from Dunkin' Donuts for squirting the donut jelly all over the customers."
"When I was a child, I always thought that the world was mine, that it was a stomping ground for me, full of opportunities. I always had this attitude that I was going to go out into the world and do all the things I wanted to do."
"Sometimes I travel through people, but I think that's true of most ambitious people. If the people can't go with me - whether it's a physical or emotional move - I feel sad about that. But that's part of the tragedy of love."
"When I came to
"Although I took to
"When My father came to visit
"I loved getting dressed up and going out on the street and walking around. I didn't have the money to take cabs then, so I took subway trains a lot and I loved seeing the unusual effect I had on people, and now I can't really enjoy that privilege any more because I already have all the attention. I feel like when I walk down the street, people don't see me as an interesting person, they see me as Madonna."
"I thought, 'Who's the most successful person in the music industry and who's his manager? I want him."
"I worked my butt of before I got where I got and literally starved and lived off the street and ate out of garbage cans before any of this happened."
"I've been working my ass off for seven years. I've worked for everything that I've got and I worked long and hard so when I got it I thought I deserved it. I always knew that it would happen."
"I always said I wanted to be famous... I never said I wanted to be rich."
"I knew I was different when I was five. My father brought me up to be competitive. I was encouraged to aim for the top rung of the ladder."
"Eventually I decided I should try and get pro about dancing. At about 12 or 13 I started going to the schools where they teach tap, jazz, baton twirling and gymnastics. It was just a place to send hyperactive girls, basically. When I was 14 or 15 I started taking ballet every day."
"I felt like I was camping outside in the wilderness for seven years. I never had any money and I never had any help. Dealing with all that and having to struggle to survive has made me into the bitch that most people think I am."
"You have to be patient. I'm not."
"Money's not important. I never think I want to make millions and millions of dollars but I don't want to have to worry about it. The more money you have the more problems you have. I went from making no money to making comparatively a lot and all I've had is problems. Life was simpler when I had no money, when I just barely survived."
"I have more bills, my telephone rings more, I look down at the ground when I'm walking, I take people out to dinner more and sometimes I get this scary feeling that I could do anything that I wanted."
"When the nude pictures were taken eight years ago they weren't meant for publication in any magazine. They were taken by these guys who took pictures for nude exhibitions. At the time I wasn't well known and wasn't aware that I was setting myself up for a future scandal. For years I modeled for lots of life studies in art schools. I was a dancer at the time. I was in really good shape and slightly underweight so you could see my muscle definition and my skeleton. I was one of their favorite models because I was easy to draw."
"You get paid 10 dollars an hour (for posing nude). It was a dollar fifty at Burger King. I kept saying, 'It's for Art'."
"I did that work to make money and ended up modeling privately in people's houses so I got involved with photographers. I consider the nude a work of art. I don't see pornography in Michelangelo. Obviously I would have preferred they weren't published but I think when people saw them they said, 'What's the big deal?' It's other people's problems if they turn them into something smutty. That was never my intention."
"At first the Playboy photos were very hurtful to me, and I wasn't sure how I felt about them. Now I look back at them and I feel silly that I ever got upset, but I did want to keep some things private. It was like when you're a little girl at school and some nun comes and lifts up your dress in front of everybody and you get really embarrassed. It's not really a terrible thing in the end, but you're not ready for it, and it seems so awful and you seem so exposed. Also Penthouse did something really nasty: they sent copies of the magazine to Sean."
"When I was in
"There have been times when I've thought 'If I'd known it was going to be like this I wouldn't have tried so hard.' If it ever gets too much, or I feel like I'm being over-scrutinized, or I'm not enjoying it any more, then I won't do it."
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"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."
"The thing that more than anything annoys me about the paparazzi is that they really feel they have put you where you are. They really think that because you're a celebrity you owe them all the pictures they can get. I think it's completely unfair."
"You can't sit around worrying about people disliking you because they're always going to be there. It can't stop you."
"When I laugh out loud in the streets here in
"I get so much bad press. People associate a girl who's successful with being a bimbo or an airhead. Sexy boys never get bad press."
"I have a lot of young girl fans and they'll start squealing on the trains. People come up and say, 'You look just like Madonna,' and I'll go 'Thank you,' or they'll say 'Are you Madonna?' and I'll say 'Yes.' Then they'll say 'No you're not'."
"I could never have imagined that success could be like this. Yes it was a surprise but I can handle it. I can still laugh about it, so I guess I'm alright."
"When Robert de Niro comes into the airport, there aren't 20 photographers who sit on his limousine and won't
allow him to leave. I don't think Al Pacino - or Robert - has been hounded the way I've been."
"There are the nutcases. Basically there are two kinds of nut - the sex maniac who wants a piece of my underwear and the moral majority who condemn me to emotional hell."
"Warner Brothers is a hierarchy of old men, and it's a chauvinist environment to be working in because I'm treated like this sexy little girl. I have to prove them wrong, which has meant not only proving myself to my fans but to my record company as well. This is something that happens when you're a girl. It wouldn't happen to Prince or Michael Jackson. I had to do everything on my own and it was hard trying to convince people that I was worth a record deal. After that I had the same problem trying to convince the record company that I had more to offer than a one-off girl singer."
"When I first started I think it offended a lot of people to find out I was white, especially black radio programmers in the American South. So many black artists won't get played that they don't want to give airtime to someone who isn't black. It's not like I'm ripping them off. At least I'm sincere. I don't feel guilty about not being black, though I think ultimately I will be able to cross over bigger because I'm not."
"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."
"Do you really think I'm a material girl? I'm not. Take it - I don't need money. I need love."
"I suppose when I ever get to the point of not having the desire to know and the hunger to learn more, then I won't continue to act or write songs."
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