Madonna Ciccone Quotes

Sure, I can afford a nice car and a nice place, but this is not what brings me happiness. Now you're on a high, and people know you and things like that, but how many people will remember your name once it all stops and the money isn't raining from the sky?

What life really is all about is happiness. It's not money, or stature, or the amount of cars you have in your driveway. Life, a really successful life, is one in which you are loved and love somebody else, or some other people.

When I was growing up, I thought I'd be a lot happier if I was famous and successful and if I had money.

You might not make it to the top, but if you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.

I didn't get rich and famous, but I do what I love.

So many people equate money and success with happiness, especially in the music industry.

It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.

I've been there and done all that, sold millions of records, and that doesn't bring you peace.

Follow your passion. Nothing - not wealth, success, accolades or fame - is worth spending a lifetime doing things you don't enjoy.

What's the subject of life - to get rich? All of those fellows out there getting rich could be dancing around the real subject of life.

And now I have a big house, nice clothes and I travel in first class and I love it, so maybe it's time to enjoy being a star.

Money is worth nothing if it can't buy you the opportunity to love more.

I thought, 'Write a hit, you'll be rich and happy.' Meet one of the most beautiful girls in the world, one of the most talented and I'll be happy. All of that: I'm not happy.

It's one of the central problems of American culture: telling you if you're younger, more beautiful, more famous, whatever, that then you'll be happy.

Just because you are living the dream making millions of dollars doesn't mean you don't go through problems.

Money is not important to me. What makes me feel successful is making the people I love happy.

Success is happiness. People say, "Oh that sounds corny." No matter how rich you are you can only sit your ass in one seat at a time. You have to be comfortable in that seat.

She wants to lead the glamorous life, but without love, it ain't much.

I've often looked at the extremes as a way to shed light on the mainstream. Even though everybody says, "Money doesn't buy you happiness," I don't think that that's the principle by which people live. If you talk to kids and ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they say, "Rich and famous," but being rich and famous is not a job.

For wealth to translate into wellbeing, you need a spiritual element within you. Without that, your success will work against you.

Success means different things to different people. To me, the greatest quality of successful human beings is the ability to love.

You want the people to know, but you don't really want the things behind it. I have everything I ever wanted. I never wanted a big house. I never wanted a Ferrari. I mean, as I proceeded with the music, I started liking Ferraris...

You can be as rich, and famous, and powerful as you want to be, and it will not bring you happiness. That's said over and over and over, again. It's such a cliché that it hardly needs to be said, but people don't understand that it's actually true.

Make a sex tape, upload it, get on a reality show, release a perfume, retire. That's the new American dream.

As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that things truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. It is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good.