She's no lady, she's Madonna

I'm a perfectionist. and I'm under lots of pressure. Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done. I can be something of a tyrant. In a working situation. Well, in a living situation too.

Madonna, quoted in the chapter, "Fame and Power," in Madonna: The Style Book, by Debbi Voller, p. 82.

She's a lady...

And most male music — not all of it but the good stuff — really lays it on you. It really puts you against the wall and that's what I'd like to do. I'd like my music to intrude. Not many females succeed with that. I identify more with male musicians than female musicians because I tend to think of female musicians as ... ah ... females.

--Kate Bush, interviewed in the book, She's a Rebel By Gillian G. Gaar, p. 223.

Kicking the door off the hinges

"I had sworn my love to Graham (Nash) in a way that I didn't think was possible for myself. And he wanted me to marry him. I had agreed to it. And then I just started thinking. My grandmother was a frustrated poet and musician, she kicked the kitchen door off the hinges, on the farm. I thought about my paternal grandmother who wept for the last time in her life at 14, behind some barn because she wanted a piano, and said, 'Dry your eyes, you silly girl, you'll never have a piano.'

"And I thought, maybe I'm the one that got the gene that has to make it happen for these two women. As much as I loved and cared for Graham, I thought, I'm going to end up like my grandmother, kicking the door off the hinges. And it's like, I better not. And it broke my heart."

(Joni Mitchell, speaking in the documentary, Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind, part of the American Masters series on PBS; 2003.)

--Transcribed by Beth Blevins.