Madonna Ciccone Quotes

What else have I done nearly all my life than go hungry and go on singing?

Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong—in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art. . . . Someone on the internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before: make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and it doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: make good art.

I know exactly what it's like to not have a penny. I know exactly what it's like trying to get a job. I know exactly what it's like having bloody one tin of Ambrosia left in the cupboard. But I know I can survive.

When I first came out, I was a film student, and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone's hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that's what I did.

In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. There were days I had only one meal... I walked miles and crossed rivers to school every day. Didn't have power, didn't have generators, studied with lanterns, but I never despaired.

I remember as a little boy I ate one meal a day and sometimes slept in the street. I will never forget that and it inspires me to fight hard, stay strong and remember all the people of my country, trying to achieve better for themselves.

Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.

I starved and slept on park benches. I wrapped myself in the pages of my manuscript to keep warm. For two and a half years I took odd jobs; nothing was going to deter me.

I experienced firsthand what it means to be poor, what it means to go hungry, and that, I think, may be the reason, the root cause of why I'm able to work so hard, even these days.

Sometimes the only way to win is to die trying.

'Growing Stronger' emerged from a need to relate my life experiences as well as my constant struggle to prevail each day, and as a reminder to myself of the importance of never giving up.

Put paying your dues and all that puts so much into being a success. You have an understanding of what it's about, being on your own for three or four years and living day to day on $3, or living in an apartment with no electricity.

After school, I'd wait for someone to pick me up and no one would, so I'd be like, 'I guess I'll walk home.' I had to be a hustler, because nobody did anything for me.

I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me... but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.

You just have to do your art. Nothing can stop you.

My personal aesthetic is to be affected directly by everything about what you're seeing... I don't mind being dashed on the rocks... My most base act of defiance is to live a long time and still rock.

My mother was one of seven girls whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn't. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work for the next 70 years. They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.

Every step of the way, life was hard. I was supposed to be a statistic.

I'm like thousands of women in South Africa who lost their men to cities and prisons... I stand defiant, tall and strong.

Even when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn't finding my way in, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep working at it and keep putting material out there, even if no one was paying me for it.

I've always been the person to look at any turmoil as temporary. I recall times where my mom was working five and six jobs, and there's still no food in the house.

I train like I never had nothing 'cause I ain't never had nothing.

My thing with the Secret Six is that they never win. The odds are always against them; everyone wants them gone. So they never win. But they never give up, either.

When things are scary, or there's a struggle, I always think, 'How is this going to sound in my biography?' Sometimes I would just be living on protein shakes or the cheapest food that I could afford because I didn't have a lot of money.

I still feel I am that 14-year-old kid, hungry and trying to find a way through life. That's what I'm trying to develop, trying to be good at something through boxing. But I feel like that young kid who's trying and trying.