Madonna Ciccone Quotes

I enjoy a challenge or provocation, something to think about, to talk about after it's done.

I like to make people a little uncomfortable. It encourages them to examine who they are and why they think the way they do.

I love to disturb people, because only by disturbing them you can make them think. They have stopped thinking for centuries. Nobody has been there to disturb them. People have been consoling them. I am not going to console anybody... Because the more you console them, the more retarded they remain. Shog them, hit them hard, give them challenge. That challenge will bring their full capacities to the climax.

Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think.

The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think.

They enjoy thinking. They enjoy being creative. They enjoy having ideas. Most people do not enjoy thinking at all.

My goal in life is to make people think. If I do that, I've been a success.

I like to make people think a little bit.

I didn't do my work for money or prizes - only for the excitement of discovery.

I like challenges that test your ingenuity.

I try to make things interesting and thought-provoking.

Less than fifteen per cent of the people do any original thinking on any subject. The greatest torture in the world for most people is to think.

Dissidents should be paid 13 months' salary for a year, otherwise our mindless unanimity will bring us to an even more hopeless state of stagnation. It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.

When you really make things that really challenge the status quo or challenge issues, and you do it artistically, and you do it with no fear, people are listening.

When I stand up in front of groups of people who agree with me, I know I have to really step my game up because I can't just sort of meet them where they're at; I have to take them somewhere else. They want you to challenge them and have good ideas.

Any educated person recognizes that curiosity and creativity aren't just important; they are among the essential human activities.

You have to think of a new way to completely surprise people who think they're hip. I always said you could make an NC-17 movie with no sex and no violence. Now I don't know what that could possibly be, but if you could think it up, you'd have a hit.

It's fun because you can escape and learn about what other people's minds have created. It inspires you to think maybe you could come up with a creature yourself. I like that.

Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.

A person who does not read cannot think. He may have good mental processes, but he has nothing to think about. You can feel for people or natural phenomena and react to them, but they are not ideas. You cannot think about them.

My direction as a person working in film has been to never get comfortable with anything I was doing. At the time that I decided to do action films, people were telling me, "Well, you can't do it. You're not that type. It's not going to work." And so obviously that made me think, "Well, that's not comfortable. Maybe I should try it. What can I do with it?" So I did that, and I'm glad I did it. I'll probably do it again, and I did other kinds of things that seemed like challenges for me, because I like being on the high wire.

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth.

I like to be provocative. I like to make people think. I like to touch people's hearts. And if I can do all three of those things in one fell swoop, then I feel like I've really accomplished something.

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance-that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be-curiosity-to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got it or not.

I think what we've experienced in the past is that people do like to be challenged.