“I decided years ago not to read stories about myself anymore. Each one is a potential minefield: Whatever it says, you’re bound to take it the wrong way. Why do it if you know it’s going to make you miserable?”

My parents have not insisted that we go to college, but she wanted us to learn. Teacher, librarian, secretary, nurse. All my siblings were employed. But I wanted to be the boss, an independent contractor.

Cherish forever what makes you unique, ‘cuz you’re really a yawn if it goes.

When I started in this [music] business, I had a dream, but it was amorphous, and I had no experience. I just had a fuzzy notion of what life would be like if I became what I pictured.

The only thing Madonna will ever do like a virgin is give birth in a stable.

Writing a book is not as tough as it is to haul thirty-five people around the country and sweat like a horse five nights a week.

Make sure your life is a rare entertainment! It doesn’t take anything drastic. You needn’t be gorgeous or wealthy or smart, just very enthusiastic!

I’m the last of the truly tacky women. I do trash with flash and sleaze with ease.

I’ve always been lucky enough to have great audiences. It has been quite a life.

[On Princess Anne:] Such an active, outdoorsy lass. She loves nature in spite of what it did to her.

My daughter very independent. But if she’s upset about something, she will absolutely let me know. She’s great – a real tough cookie.

Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, I’ll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?

If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to do it?

I always wanted to be a performer, I didn’t know exactly what kind of performer, all I knew was there were certain things that I liked. I liked movies a whole lot, and I loved music.

Where did I do well?” When I did this assessment of my life, I said to myself, “It was really good.”

Unfortunately, every time there’s a budget crunch in New York, the Parks Department is usually the first to be cut. So they need all the help they can get.

When it’s time to shuffle off this mortal coil, you leave your ashes to be composted.

I’m not a natural story-teller. Put a keyboard in front of me and I’m fine, but stand me up in front of an audience and I’m actually quite shy and reserved.

Dan Rather is guilty of not being skeptical enough about a story that was politically loaded.

As a child, I was a brat, and my parents didn’t know how to control me. So they told me ghost stories, which stayed with me. I am still petrified of darkness and being alone.

My level of intervention in the press, trying to control stories, is zero. Subzero.

People are over 20 times more likely to remember a story than a series of facts and figures. A good story touches our hearts.

It’s your life story if you’re a mathematician: every time you discover something neat, you discover that Gauss or Newton knew it in his crib.

I try to tell a story musically in a song.

Anyone, any type of story, it doesnt have to be a crime victim, you dont have to let yourself be food for the media.