Madonna, born on August 16, 1958, in Michigan, USA, is a pioneering pop icon known for her boundary-pushing music, provocative persona, and groundbreaking influence on popular culture. Rising to prominence in the 1980s, she redefined the music industry with hits like “Like a Virgin,” “Material Girl,” and “Vogue,” establishing herself as the “Queen of Pop.” Madonna’s career spans decades, marked by constant reinvention and artistic experimentation. She is celebrated for her bold fashion choices, daring performances, and unwavering commitment to pushing artistic boundaries. Beyond music, Madonna has ventured into acting, directing, and philanthropy, using her platform to advocate for various social and political causes. Her influence extends far beyond music; Madonna’s impact on fashion, gender roles, and sexual liberation has left an indelible mark on popular culture, inspiring countless artists and empowering generations of fans to embrace individuality and self-expression.
Madonna Quotes
1. “No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.”
— Madonna
2. “A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want.”
— Madonna
3. “I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.”
— Madonna
4. “Poor is the man whose pleasure depends on the permission of another.”
— Madonna
5. “No one knows you better than you know yourself. Do the thing you want. Don’t wait for someone else.”
— Madonna
6. “Set your goals high and go far. Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today.”
— Madonna
7. “Power is being told you’re not loved and not being destroyed by it.”
— Madonna
8. “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
9. “If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you’re always going to be disappointed.”
— Madonna
10. “If you want to change the world, change yourself.”
— Madonna
11. “The essence of femininity is to absolutely love being a woman.”
— Madonna
12. “The self-confidence one builds from achieving difficult things and accomplishing goals is the most beautiful thing of all.”
— Madonna
13. “Express yourself, don’t repress yourself.”
— Madonna
14. “We all need to treat each other with human dignity and respect.”
— Madonna
15. “Nothing really matters; love is all we need.”
— Madonna
16. “I don’t care if you hate me or love me, as long as I make you think.”
— Madonna
17. “I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.”
— Madonna
18. “I’ve been popular and unpopular, successful and unsuccessful, loved and loathed, and I know how meaningless it all is. Therefore, I feel free to take whatever risks I want.”
— Madonna
19. “You’re frozen when your heart’s not open.”
— Madonna
20. “You only see what your eyes want to see. How can life be what you want it to be?”
— Madonna
21. “I always wished that I could find someone as beautiful as you, but in the process I forgot that I was special too. ”
— Madonna
22. “Freedom comes when you learn to let go, creation comes when you learn to say ‘no’”
— Madonna
23. “We are living in a material world and I’m a material girl.”
— Madonna
24. “When I get down on my knees, it is not to pray.”
— Madonna
25. “There’s no greater power than the power of good-bye.”
— Madonna
26. “I’ll rest when I’m dead. I’m hungry and life is short!”
— Madonna
27. “If you want something bad enough the whole world conspires to help you get it.”
— Madonna
28. “Don’t just stand there let’s get to it. Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it.”
— Madonna
29. “Happiness lies in your own hand.”
— Madonna
30. “This will be a revolution of inquiring further, of not worrying about winning other people’s approval, of not wishing you were someone else but perfectly content to be who you are. Someone unique, and rare, and fearless. I want to start a revolution of love.”
— Madonna
31. “I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.”
— Madonna
32. “Like a virgin, touched for the very first time.”
— Madonna
33. “I am a survivor. I am like a cockroach, you just can’t get rid of me.”
— Madonna
34. “I am not reinventing myself. I am going through the layers and revealing myself. I am on a journey, an adventure that’s constantly changing shape.”
— Madonna
35. “Its boring not to take risks.”
— Madonna
36. “Never forget to dream.”
— Madonna
37. “Deep in my heart I’m concealing things that I’m longing to say. Scared to confess what I’m feeling – frightened you’ll slip away.”
— Madonna
38. “I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist.”
— Madonna
39. “Yoga is a metaphor for life. You have to take it really slowly. You can’t rush. You can’t skip to the next position. You find yourself in very humiliating situations, but you can’t judge yourself. You just have to breathe, and let go. It is a workout for your mind, your body and your soul.”
— Madonna
40. “If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate, just one day out of life, it would be, it would be so nice.”
— Madonna
41. “I don’t give a damn if I go to hell. I love you Satan. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
— Madonna
42. “I must confess that I am usually drawn to sadness, and loneliness has never been a stranger to me. But love tried to welcome me, but my soul drew back, guilty of lust and sin.”
— Madonna
43. “Every time I reach a new peak, I see a new one I want to climb.”
— Madonna
44. “Don’t go for second best. Put your love to the test.”
— Madonna
45. “Why did I want to break all the rules? Because the rules didn’t make sense, that’s why.”
— Madonna
46. “If it’s bitter at the start, then it’s sweeter in the end.”
— Madonna
47. “A good relationship is a competition of generosity.”
— Madonna
48. “I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon but i want to STAY ALIVE.”
— Madonna
49. “One is that we are all responsible for our actions, our behavior, and our words, and we must take responsibility for everything we say and do. I am the architect of my destiny. You can’t blame other people for things that happened to you.”
— Madonna
50. “I am because we are. We all bleed the same color. We all want to love and be loved.”
— Madonna
51. “There’s a certain satisfaction in a little bit of pain.”
— Madonna
52. “Education is not a luxury, it is a basic human right.”
— Madonna
53. “If the land of make believe is inside your heart it will never leave.”
— Madonna
54. “All you need is your own imagination. So use it that’s what it’s for.”
— Madonna
55. “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.”
— Madonna
56. “Beauty’s where you find it; not just where you bump and grind it.”
— Madonna
57. “I think you can be defiant and rebellious and still be strong and positive.”
— Madonna
58. “Nothing cheers a girl up like SHOPPING!”
— Madonna
59. “I want the good life, but I don’t want an easy ride. What I want is to work for it, feel the blood and sweat on my fingertips.”
— Madonna
60. “Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free.”
— Madonna
61. “Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots cause it’s okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading cause you think being a girl is degrading.”
— Madonna
62. “When I came to New York it was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d ever gotten a taxi-cab, the first time for everything. And I came here with 35 dollars in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done.”
— Madonna
63. “Strong women leave big hickies.”
— Madonna
64. “Not only does society suffer from racism and sexism but it also suffers from ageism. Once you reach a certain age you’re not allowed to be adventurous, you’re not allowed to be sexual. I mean, is there a rule? Are you supposed to just die?”
— Madonna
65. “Having money is just the best thing in the world.”
— Madonna
66. “Tell me love isn’t true, it’s just something that we do.”
— Madonna
67. “You have to reinvent to stay fresh, to stay in the game.”
— Madonna
68. “I wouldn’t say I wanna conquer the world anymore. But I want to be a part of making the world a better place. I want to inspire people and I wanna be part of the solution.”
— Madonna
69. “I don’t take drugs. I never did. All the feelings that drugs are supposed to produce in you – confidence or energy – I can produce naturally.”
— Madonna
70. “May the angels protect you, and sadness forget you.”
— Madonna
71. “I ran to the forest, I ran to the trees. I ran and I ran, I was looking for me.”
— Madonna
72. “Cosmic systems intertwine, astral bodies drip like wine, all of nature ebbs and flows. Comets shoot across the sky, can’t explain the reasons why, this is how creation goes.”
— Madonna
73. “When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it.”
— Madonna
74. “You’ll always be two steps behind me.”
— Madonna
75. “Only the one that hurts you can make you feel better. Only the one that inflicts pain can take it away.”
— Madonna
76. “If you have to ask for something more than once or twice, it wasn’t yours in the first place. And that’s hard to accept when you love someone.”
— Madonna
77. “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.””
— Madonna
78. “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.”
— Madonna
79. “I fear the future I wish for my children is at risk, so I’m taking action. Please join me…”
— Madonna
80. “Crucifixes are sexy because there’s a naked man on them.”
— Madonna
81. “I have had many challenges in my life, including some very big ones when I was young and I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way. I have seen life from just about every angle you can see it from.”
— Madonna
82. “Publicly humiliating someone for your own gain will only come and haunt you. God’s going to have his revenge.”
— Madonna
83. “Manipulating people, that’s what I’m good at.”
— Madonna
84. “Who needs a smile when a tear’s so full of love?”
— Madonna
85. “Sick and perverted always appeals to me.”
— Madonna
86. “Hand fits giving, so do it, that’s what the Gospel said to me. Life fits living, so let your judgments go.”
— Madonna
87. “I always acted like a star long before I was one.”
— Madonna
88. “I didn’t set out to write certain kinds of songs – I just set out to write good songs.”
— Madonna
89. “I’m not going to compromise my artistic integrity.”
— Madonna
90. “Rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac.”
— Madonna
91. “Filmmaking is such a collaboration. At a certain point, I suppose you do have to let go and trust the people you’re working with.”
— Madonna
92. “Isn’t everyone just travelling down their own road watching the signs as they go?”
— Madonna
93. “Britney Spears became my talisman. I became obsessed with wearing Britney T-shirts. I felt it would bring me luck. And it did.”
— Madonna
94. “I like to be a team player. All the projects I do are collaborations. And I want to solicit the opinions and help of other people. I’m not interested in being the one in charge.”
— Madonna
95. “I don’t think I have to introduce myself, unless you don’t recognize me with my clothes on.”
— Madonna
96. “Just like a prayer, your voice can take me there.”
— Madonna
97. “My life is not a game that I play to entertain you.”
— Madonna
98. “Truth is never far behind.”
— Madonna
99. “Sometimes you want to go for a walk and you don’t want to be watched. You just want to be anonymous and blend in. Especially when I travel, I feel that way, because I can’t really go out and see a city the way other people can and I miss out on a lot.”
— Madonna
100. “Art can heal it if art is allowed to exist. And if art is slowly wiped off the face of the planet, then what tools do we have to reach people, to appeal to them and all of their senses?”
— Madonna
101. “People who have nothing better to do than talk about my hair color have no lives.”
— Madonna
102. “I wouldn’t have turned out the way I was if I didn’t have all those old-fashioned values to rebel against.”
— Madonna
103. “I suffered fools so gladly.”
— Madonna
104. “I became an overachiever to get approval from the world…”
— Madonna
105. “Elvis Presley? He’s God.”
— Madonna
106. “The world is not so kind, people trap your mind.”
— Madonna
107. “I believe what I practice has to do with something deeper than religion, that it embodies all religions, including Judaism. And Christianity. And Islam.”
— Madonna
108. “You can be sexy, but you can’t be 50.”
— Madonna
109. “We all fall to the floor at some point. It’s how you pick yourself up that’s the real challenge. Isn’t it?”
— Madonna
110. “Motherhood was the beginning of my own journey asking the question, ‘Why am I here?’ I had to stop and think: What am I doing to teach my daughter? What do I believe in?”
— Madonna
111. “You can tell how much fun a city is going to be if Nobu is in it.”
— Madonna
112. “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.”
— Madonna
113. “Words are useless, especially sentences.”
— Madonna
114. “One set of circumstances does not complete you. Maybe nothing ever does. So you work on your life and you work on your ‘work’ and you try to live every single day like it’s your last. And you try to be better, to yourself and to others. I don’t always succeed. But I try and it’s my goal.”
— Madonna
115. “When the day is done the most important thing is loving people and sharing love.”
— Madonna
116. “You’re so consumed with how much you get, you waste your time with hate and regret.”
— Madonna
117. “To me punk rock is thinking outside of the box, outside of the program, outside the establishment.”
— Madonna
118. “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.”
— Madonna
119. “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.”
— Madonna
120. “We’ve made so many advances in other areas – civil rights, gay rights – but ageism is still an area that’s taboo and not talked about and dealt with.”
— Madonna
121. “Beauty is where you find it.”
— Madonna
122. “I’m a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.”
— Madonna
123. “Life’s too short to be bitter, I’m too short to be bitter.”
— Madonna
124. “Let love shine and we will find a way to come together.”
— Madonna
125. “I think that everyone should get married at least once, so you can see what a silly, outdated institution it is.”
— Madonna
126. “Power without guilt, love without doubt…”
— Madonna
127. “Why did God create men? Because vibrators can’t mow the lawn.”
— Madonna
128. “A fire lit under my ass? Yeah, that’s true. No time to waste.”
— Madonna
129. “Rebel Heart changed everything. First of all, it drove me insane – and made me feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety. It made me second guess everything, because suddenly I thought, ‘Oh god, everyone’s heard all these demos.’”
— Madonna
130. “Better to live one year as a tiger, then a hundred as sheep.”
— Madonna
131. “Rita Haywood gave good face.”
— Madonna
132. “We learn our lessons; we get hurt; we want revenge. Then we realize that actually, happiness and forgiving people is the best revenge.”
— Madonna
133. “Its better to live a goat than 100 sheep.”
— Madonna
134. “It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s what you do that takes you far.”
— Madonna
135. “I’m a role model for those who dare to be different. For those who dare to take a stand in their life and have an opinion.”
— Madonna
136. “I have the same goal I’ve had ever since I was a girl: I want to rule the world.”
— Madonna
137. “As much good as it does, social media can also encourage stupidity and degradation.”
— Madonna
138. “I know where beauty lives, I’ve seen it once, I know the warmth she gives.”
— Madonna
139. “I like film soundtracks. I like the soundtracks better than the movies.”
— Madonna
140. “Once you start turning over rocks and reaching out to help people, there’s a whole avalanche coming right behind it. And it seems never-ending. But when you see the fruits of your labor, you feel like it’s possible.”
— Madonna
141. “Power is a great aphrodisiac and I am a very powerful person.”
— Madonna
142. “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.”
— Madonna
143. “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.”
— Madonna
144. “One must dare to show what he wants. You have to go and ask for things rather than wait for them to happen.”
— Madonna
145. “We live in a world where people like to pit women against each other. And this is why I love the idea of embracing other females who are doing what I’m doing. It’s important for us to support each other.”
— Madonna
146. “One thing I’ve learned is that I’m not the owner of my talent; I’m the manager of it.”
— Madonna
147. “Fame is a by-product. It’s not a goal. What matters is loving your work and loving what you do.”
— Madonna
148. “The media is something that affects a lot of people, so you’re constantly trying to strike a balance between respecting something and not caring about it.”
— Madonna
149. “In the midnight hour, I can feel your power.”
— Madonna
150. “People who listen to them properly don’t underestimate them. Unfortunately, there’s so much about my career and me that distracts people from the actual content of most of my songs.”
— Madonna
151. “Fame is a form of misunderstanding.”
— Madonna
152. “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.”
— Madonna
153. “Popularity comes and goes. You need to know who you are, what you stand for, and why you’re here.”
— Madonna
154. “Economic markets are collapsing. People all over the world are suffering and people afraid. What happens when peep are afraid? They become intolerant.”
— Madonna
155. “When I’m dead and no longer the threat. My comfort is that all the great artists since the beginning of time have always been completely misunderstood and never fully appreciated until they were dead.”
— Madonna
156. “I don’t think ultimately God punishes. I think we bring about our own destruction or our own creation.”
— Madonna
157. “It amazes me when I talk to people in their early 20s and they’ve never read the classics, things we read as children. When you don’t have knowledge and understanding, then fear rises in you.”
— Madonna
158. “There’s no borderline for the things that I can say, do, and create…”
— Madonna
159. “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.”
— Madonna
160. “With every breath, I’m deeper in you.”
— Madonna
161. “People hear the soul, black influence in my voice. I grew up listening to CKLW and all the black stations like WLBS.”
— Madonna
162. “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.”
— Madonna
163. “Losing my virginity was a career move.”
— Madonna
164. “In my coming-of-age time, there was no internet, no social networking, nothing. It was just show after show, hoping one day somebody would notice you.”
— Madonna
165. “I wanted to be famous. I wanted everybody to love me. I wanted to be a star. I worked really hard and my dream came true.”
— Madonna
166. “Do I have to change my name, will it get me far? Should I lose some weight, am I gonna be a star?”
— Madonna
167. “It takes more strength to cry, admit defeat. I have truth on my side, you only have deceit.”
— Madonna
168. “I love being photographed, or I should say I love the art of photography. It’s about people taking photographs of you, stealing them, and then presuming or assuming or captioning. Words can never be taken back, photographs can never be taken back, nothing can ever be taken back.”
— Madonna
169. “I tried to be a boy, I tried to be a girl, I tried to be a mess.”
— Madonna
170. “It takes a Real man to fill my shoes.”
— Madonna
171. “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.”
— Madonna
172. “I don’t care anymore if people dress like me, now I want them to think like me.”
— Madonna
173. “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.”
— Madonna
174. “Bad girl, drunk by six, kissing someone else’s lips. Smoked to many cigarettes today, I’m not happy when I act this way.”
— Madonna
175. “Hey you! Don’t be silly! Put a rubber on your willie!”
— Madonna
176. “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.”
— Madonna
177. “I’m so used to people slagging me off. Since the beginning of my career I’ve been told I have no talent, I can’t sing and I’m a one-hit wonder.”
— Madonna
178. “I think art should be controversial. I think it should make people think.”
— Madonna
179. “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
180. “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.”
— Madonna
181. “My priority is my family, absolutely, 100 percent.”
— Madonna
182. “I’ve gone from having a huge fan base to losing a huge fan base to having a kind of fluctuating fan base. I’ve always had a core of fans who’ve stuck by me but, depending on the kind of music I do, I end up appealing to certain groups of people and alienating others.”
— Madonna
183. “I don’t give a damn if I go to hell.”
— Madonna
184. “I could bring you so much pleasure, erotic, erotic, put your hands all over my body.”
— Madonna
185. “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.”
— Madonna
186. “In some respects I will never die. Because art is immortal. What we leave behind and what we create – the energy that we put out into the world is eternal.”
— Madonna
187. “And I’ll remember the love that you gave me, now that I am standing on my own, I’ll remember the way that you changed me, I’ll remember.”
— Madonna
188. “You bring me to my knees, while I’m scratching out the eyes of a world I want to conquer, and deliver, and despise. And right while I am kneeling there, I suddenly begin to care. And understand that there could be a person that loves me.”
— Madonna
189. “My mother died when I was five, and all I did was sit and cry. I cried and cried and cried all day, until the neighbors went away.”
— Madonna
190. “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.”
— Madonna
191. “I have great respect for Sean Penn. It’s like most relationships that fail. It’s not one thing, it’s many thing that go on over a period of time.”
— Madonna
192. “Sometimes you just have to go and make a mess of things to get people to pay attention.”
— Madonna
193. “My heart goes out to the families of innocent children who were killed today in Pakistan!! I do not accept a world where kids are killed for wanting an education! This violence and ignorance has to stop!!!! It starts with all of us treating all human beings with dignity and respect!!”
— Madonna
194. “I became very obsessed with death, and the idea that you never know when death will arrive, so one has to do as much as possible all the time to get the most out of life. That would be a motivating force.”
— Madonna
195. “It’s weird juggling children in a rhinestone outfit.”
— Madonna
196. “Family is everything. Family comes first. It’s not what I expected it to be, but nothing ever is.”
— Madonna
197. “I am a tip-top starlet. That is my job that I am paid to do.”
— Madonna
198. “People have this idea that if you’re sexual and beautiful and provocative, then there’s nothing else you could possibly offer.”
— Madonna
199. “We live in a very scary time. Or should I say we don’t live at all.”
— Madonna
200. “I don’t think about my old stuff. I just move forward.”
— Madonna
