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.

If I was a girl again, I would like to be like my fans, I would like to be like Madonna.

I hate being called a pop star. I hate that.

I don't like rooms you never use or that are wasted space but I also like a sparseness and a cleanness.

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.

Prince Charles is very relaxed at the table, throwing his salad around willy-nilly. I didn't find him stiff at all.

A lot of places I go are dangerous, like Tel Aviv or Rio, but that never stops me from going there and putting on a show. I have good security. I don't worry about that.

I have my work and my faith... If that's boring to some people, I can't tell you how much I don't care.

My physical transformations - like changing my hair - are usually a reflection of what's inspiring me at the moment.

I was more of a dancing kid than a singing kid. I mean, I sang in school choirs and I sang in school musicals, but I was much more interested in dancing than singing.

Of course, my interests and my focus change and become more diverse, more worldly. At the same time, I am interested in the simple basics, which is I love to dance and I love to make people dance.

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.

When I first came to New York I was a dancer, and a French record label offered me a recording contract and I had to go to Paris to do it. So I went there and that's how I really got into the music business. But I didn't like what I was doing when I got there, so I left, and I never did a record there.

I suppose I sometimes used to act like I wasn't a human being... Sometimes I look back at myself and remember things I used to say, or my hairstyle, and I cringe.

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 like to think I'm a role model for women. But I also don't like to just limit it to women. I like to think I'm a role model for human beings in general.

I grew up in a high school where it was very conservative, and I felt like people disapproved of me, and I felt like an outsider.

I'm opening gyms around the world to encourage people to get in shape and feel good about themselves; bringing art through dance to gyms to make my gyms different from other people's.

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 know there's more to life than making lots of money and being successful and even getting married and having a family.

Imagine if someone like John Lennon or Bob Marley, Sid Vicious, Picasso, whomever, were doing their work, and some corporation, some CEO, some branding entity was saying to you, 'Well, you can do that, but you've got to remove this aspect of your work.' There would no longer be that purity anymore.

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

I'm a showgirl. After 20 years in show business, I've learned to roll with the punches.

I was named after my mother. And I guess when I started making records, Madonna Ciccone seemed too long and complicated, and I just got stuck with Madonna.