Madonna Ciccone Thinking Quotations

I think my biggest flaw is my insecurity. I'm terribly insecure. I'm plagued with insecurities 24/7.

I think in the end, when you're famous, people like to narrow you down to a few personality traits. I think I've just become this ambitious, say-whatever's-on-her-mind, intimidating person. And that's part of my personality, but it's certainly not anywhere near the whole thing.

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 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I think that everyone should get married at least once, so you can see what a silly, outdated institution it is.

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 guess some people are brilliant enough to be brilliant on their own and never doubt anything and come up with fabulous things. But I think it's good to get into arguments with people and have them say, 'That sucks' or 'You're crazy' or 'That's cheesy' or 'What do you think of this?'

I've never really lived a conventional life, so I think it's quite foolish for me or anyone else to start thinking that I am going to start making conventional choices.

Marriage? I don't know what I really think about marriage. I'm a bit confused on that issue.

I don't think I have to introduce myself, unless you don't recognize me with my clothes on.

People think they will wake up one day and I'll be gone. But I'm never going away.

Hollywood is about playing the game, and I can't think of any successful actresses who didn't play the game. There's a lot more renegades in the music business, from Patti Smith to Janis Joplin.

As much as I think I've inspired people in the world, I'd like to be more involved bringing about world peace.

I think love resides in all of the songs, even when they are overtly sexual.

If it makes Tom Cruise happy, I don't care if he prays to turtles, ... And I don't think anybody else should.

I think the silence would be good with me, and not interacting with people would be okay. But not being able to move outside of the space would be hard. Not being able to walk around - the stillness of my body, physically - that would be the challenge.

You don't want to be the smartest person in the room; you want to be the dumbest in the room. You want to be surrounded by other thinking people who are going to say something that makes you think, "Oh, my God, that's an amazing idea. Why didn't I think of that."

People think that being famous is just about having your picture taken all the time and being rich rich rich, and you know what?... They're absolutely right.

Thinking isn't something you think about. It comes naturally. Thinking involves many things. It involves being an observer. It involves analyzing things, taking in what's around you in the world and finding how to make it inspire your work or turn it into a lesson to teach your children; it's paying attention to details. That's what thinking is: processing.

Children always think they did something wrong when their parents disappear.

I've been inspired by films since I started dancing, and I'm married to a filmmaker, and I think it was one of my secret desires, but I was afraid to just say, 'I want to be a director'. But then one day I said, O.K., stop dreaming and do it. But I didn't want to do it the Hollywood way, and talk through agents. I decided it all had to be generated by me, so I wrote it.

I was thinking about dying the other day the death thought came while I was sitting on the toilet peeing - that's where I have my most contemplative thoughts.

I do think of myself as a queen, but I don't think I'm the only queen. There's room for other queens. We reign over different kingdoms.

I think it's just that as a creative person, in all the different things that I've done or ways that I've found to express myself, I've consistently come up against resistance in certain areas. I think that the world is not comfortable with female sexuality. It's always coming from a male point of view, and a woman is being objectified by a man - and even women are comfortable with that. But when a woman does it, ironically, women are uncomfortable with it. I think a lot of that has to do with conditioning.

I think you can be defiant and rebellious and still be strong and positive.

I don't care anymore if people dress like me, now I want them to think like me.

A lot of people saw Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland as persecuted and tragic and vulnerable, and I think a lot of gay men feel that way because of their particular predicament in society and not being accepted completely.

I think they were scared of me because I was different. I've always asked, 'Why? Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to look this way? Why do I have to dress this way? Why do I have to behave this way?'

The worst thing about being famous? I think it's what everybody says.. the lack of privacy and the idea that you're not really allowed to make mistakes and everything that you do is viewed under a microscope.

People don't know what Kabbalah is, and so they jump to conclusions. For me, studying Kabbalah is studying - is just - is asking questions. And I encourage all of my children to be that way, and I think people don't understand that. And so they make assumptions and they judge.

When I think about popular culture, I can't help but think that we're living in the age of loneliness. There's this illusion that we all have instant access to each other, but we actually have no real connection.

It's not easy having a good marriage--but I don't want easy. Easy doesn't make you grow. Easy doesn't make you think. I thank God everyday that I am married to a man who makes me think. That's my definition of true love.

If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed.

I can't even think of the words of what I'm feeling. This man [Prince] was my everything, we had a family. I am beyond deeply saddened and devastated.

I think there probably was a time when I was less provocative. That's when I was married.

I think all of us make the mistake of thinking we're going to change people when we get together. But we're not. People are who they are. And people change in their own time.

A lot of people are just really confused by me; they don’t know what to think of me, so they try to compartmentalize me or diminish me. Maybe they just feel unsafe. But any time you have an overtly emotional or irrational, negative reaction to something, you’re fearing something that it’s bringing up in you.

I love horses. I think I may have been one of Henry VIII’s knights in another life, riding through a great forest.

Effeminate men intrigue me more than anything in the world. I see them as my alter egos. I feel very drawn to them. I think like a guy, but I'm feminine. So I relate to feminine men.

I do think that the birth of my daughter was sort of a rebirth for me. It made me look at life in a completely new way. And that made me appreciate life in a way I don't think I ever had before.

Dress like Britney Spears and think like me, and everything will be fine.

The beast is the modern world that we live in! The material world. The physical world. The world of illusion that we think is real. We live for it; we're enslaved by it. And it will ultimately be our undoing.

The one thing I don't understand is when people make comments who are clearly not fans of mine. I think, why are you here? Why are you wasting your time? It's fascinating.

I think everybody has a bisexual nature. That's my theory. I could be wrong.

I pay attention to what's going on around me. I'm always looking for new energy, new talent, new voices. When you do that I think it's easier to come up with fresh ideas. It's not that my career has been based on surprising people, but it's been about challenging myself - to constantly do new things that are going to broaden my own mind and in the process, hopefully, connect with other people.

I've read a couple of reviews that say I'm getting harder in my old age but I don't think that's true at all. I think that you can't help but become a little cynical about life and love but I'm still a romantic, I'm still an idealist.

I think that life is a paradox and you have to embrace that in your work and your belief systems.... You can't be a literalist, and that's the trouble that people always find themselves in. That's why people always hit a wall with any of my stuff, because you can't take it literally.

I don't think about my old stuff. I just move forward.

I think passive beauties have their place in the world. It's hard for me to relate to that.

Life and love inspire me. I think reinventing yourself is vital to your survival as an artist and a human being. I know it’s cliché to say about me at this point, but it’s true. My curiosity definitely is the driving force in my life and career. When you stop learning, engaging and growing, you’re dead.

When my world seems to crumble all around, and foolish people try to bring me down, I just think of your smile face, and I'm flying.

I miss New York. I still love how people talk to you on the street - just assault you and tell you what they think of your jacket.

I think they were scared of me because I was different.

Trying to be a professional dancer, paying my rent by posing nude for art classes, staring at people staring at me naked. Daring them to think of me as anything but a form they were trying to capture with their pencils and charcoal. I was defiant. Hell-bent on surviving. On making it. But it was hard and it was lonely, and I had to dare myself every day to keep going.

Having children made me go down a road of serious introspection and self-examination. I think it's informed and hopefully enhanced my creativity.

I think after time goes by and you earn certain rights or you break through certain barriers, you could sometimes, maybe, take it for granted what you have now that you didn't have before. And then that would lead to a certain lack of community, in a way, caring in a way, that I saw before [in gay society].

I think there are just as many assholes meeting the old-fashioned way as there are meeting in the new hookup culture.

I think for the most part men have always been the aggressors sexually. Through time immemorial they've 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.

I think art should be controversial. I think it should make people think.

I think I had a lot of bad hair moments. In the early 80's just sometimes I wore purple lipstick or green lipstick.

To me punk rock is thinking outside of the box, outside of the program, outside the establishment.

We're very privileged as Americans - it's easy to forget about the rest of the world and to think that your problems are the most important problems. Even poor people in America live better than poor people most everywhere else.

Everyone who knows me thinks I'm a bit of a work Nazi.

I don't think anyone strives to be anything negative. I just think that it's our nature to only focus on a few things in life and forget about a lot of other stuff.

I think lines are meant to be crossed anyways. The entire time I was singing on the cross, there's numbers flipping over my head. You know, starting at one and going up to 12 million.

I panic every time I put out a record. I think every artist does.

What else is there for me to conquer? Hopefully my ego. How will I know when I've succeeded? When I stop caring what anyone thinks.

I'd like to think I am taking people on a journey; I am not just entertaining people, but giving them something to think about when they leave.

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.

Some people out there think everything I do is a publicity stunt, they think when I go to the bathroom it's a publicity stunt.

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.

I think most children who are adopted ultimately want to meet their biological parents and often do. I think that is an important journey for children who are adopted to go on.

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 don't think ultimately God punishes. I think we bring about our own destruction or our own creation.

I don't care if you hate me or love me, as long as I make you think.