Grace jones quotes

I have just as much woman in me as I have man. It's just a matter of channeling the energy into which way you use it.

There will always be a replacement coming along very soon - a newer version, a crazier version, a louder version. So if you haven’t got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday’s event.

There're lots of musicians in my family, too. My mother sings incredibly well. I've got to make a record with my mother's voice on it. She sings a lyric soprano. We do the opposite. I'm a baritone. She's a star singer in her church. She always does her solo.

When I was modelling, I spent half my life staring at thousands of perfect reflections. It got to a stage where I was losing all sense of reality - so after I quit modelling, I took all the mirrors out of my house.

I like dressing like a guy. I love it. When I was modeling I used to do pictures where I would dress up like my little brother. No makeup and I looked like a boy.

I believe in having certain releases, certain outlets. One has to indulge. If you don't indulge, you don't live -might as well be dead. I believe in indulging as a user and not as an abuser.

Whatever one is creating, one has to stick to one's guns and just do it. That is all. Put your foot down and do not let your work be compromised.

Everyone has to make their own decisions. I still believe in that. You just have to be able to accept the consequences without complaining.

If people think I'm angry, I don't want to burst anybody's bubble. I like sometimes for people to be afraid of me. But it's not really anger; it's discipline.

I came from a very strict background, and didn't hear any Jamaican music when I was growing up.

It doesn't surprise me that people can't see beyond my image. It's amazing, but I can understand it. That's what image is for. But it's never a problem for me. It's only a problem for them. I don't really care. I do what I want regardless.

I just go with the flow, I follow the yellow brick road. I don't know where it's going to lead me, but I follow it.

I was skinny as a rail and had high cheekbones and a very interesting face - or so I was told.

When you become such a strong personality in music, it's hard for people to accept you as a different character.

Survival is my primary instinct...it's out of my control. It's stronger than me. It's an outside force, a voice that says 'do this for your life or it will devour you.'

I would have rebelled against parental authority, no matter what. When I was 15, I started painting my face and making my own clothes.

I am an actress first, a singer second.

To be honest, my life is not really as way-out and myth-loaded as people like to portray it.

Most performers take themselves too seriously. They forget there is a difference between the characters they play on the screen or stage and themselves, but the public doesn't forget there is a difference. They see how silly it is if you try to be the same person all the time.

I like to think of myself as a positive person. Otherwise I wouldn't have had a child.

I don't take the English press seriously at all because all they want is dirt... I hate them.

I thought I'd take style to its limit... My philosophy is a belief in magic, good luck , self-confidence, and pride.

When you start in that [model] business the rules are imposed upon you, but when you stay in the business long enough the rules could be broken.

You can't expect your children to be perfect.

I'm still shocked every time I see snow. The first bit of snow each year... I stay up and I watch it. And then I go out and pick it up and eat it and move around in it.

I never thought I was going to be a singer. That was an accident.

This is depression, it comes when your blocking. This is expression it comes when you're rocking

My mother was a champion high-jumper. My three brothers are basketball players. We've all been very athletic.

In the Seventies and Eighties we all had our fun, and now and then we went really too far. But, ultimately, it required a certain amount of clear thinking, a lot of hard work and good make-up to be accepted as a freak.

When I perform on stage I become those male bullies, those dominators from my childhood. That's probably why it's so scary, because they scared me.

I always thought that feminine, softer side was just too vulnerable to put out there, because then it's like you're opening up a door for everybody to come in, and you don't know who's going to come in that door.

Crying is not a weakness. It's something that should be able to work for you. It should also be a strength. I think if you can cry when you feel like crying it's a strength. If you feel like crying and you can't cry, that's a weakness. That means you're holding all that stuff inside.

I don't like people who hide things.

I don't know what I'm going to be doing in two years or even in two weeks. I have to live for today.

I believe in individuality, that everybody is special, and it's up to them to find that quality and let it live.

I'm too vain, one of my biggest sins, but it saved me; I can see what excess does.

It was very painful combing my hair. My grand-uncle was a Pentecostal bishop, and he was very strict: our hair couldn't be permed or straightened. So I just cut it all off.

I see myself as no color. I can play the role of a man. I can paint my face white if I want to and play the role of white. I can play a green, I can be a purple. I think I have that kind of frame and that kind of attitude where I can play an animal. If you think in color, then everyone around you is going to think in color and that puts limits on the way you think. I don't think like that. A lot of the roles that I'm doing are roles that a man or a person of any color can do.

We're not perfect; we all have things that people might not like to see, and I like to show my faults.

I think it's somewhere in my head, in my travel space, and it just comes out. It's a visual thing that happens unintentionally. People will tell me, "You do realize you just spoke with that accent, right?" And I'll go, "Oh, did I?" So it's not something I think about. As we talk, I have a visual about my speech and it just comes out like that. If that makes any sense!

That's what they do in Argentina. Have a little wine and talk. Then have some coffee and talk. Then, go back to the wine.

Even if I sing like a robot, it is still an emotional robot.

I don't collaborate. You're born alone, you die alone, you get on stage alone.

Disco was like the celebration of music through dance and my God! When you heard the music sometimes it was like, if you don't get up and dance, you aren't human!

Growing up in Jamaica, the Pentecostal church wasn't that fiery thing you might think. It was very British, very proper. Hymns. No dancing. Very quiet. Very fundamental.

I'm not a rock star, I'm a soft person.

I didn't think I had a voice at all, and I still think of myself as an interpreter of songs more than a singer. I thought it was too deep; people thought I was a man. I had a very strong Jamaican accent, too; the accent really messed me up for auditions.

I'm not as impatient as I used to be. I used to hit people if I didn't like what they were saying. Just lash out. 'Bam - shut up! Hahahah!' I was terrible.

It's ridiculous for a woman to say that she's not attracted to other women. That's completely false.

Rock n' roll can get quite overwhelming. You can get caught up in the cycle.

I loved all those classic figures from the '30s and '40s... Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Rita Hayworth. They had such glamour and style. I loved the movies of those times too - so much attention paid to details, lights, clothing, the way the studios would develop talent.

Models are there to look like mannequins, not like real people. Art and illusion are supposed to be fantasy.

Disco existed before we were all born and will exist afterwards. It is a ritual - it is a celebration - and it is the same kind of music that we call disco or rock'n'roll or a whole list of names that we can call it. Call it what you will, nothing will change the fact that certain kinds of music will make you want to celebrate or party.

I only started getting into furs when the designers I liked started making them.

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A REBEL. I NEVER DO THINGS THE WAY THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DONE. EITHER I GO IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OR I CREATE A NEW DIRECTION FOR MYSELF, REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE RULES ARE OR WHAT SOCIETY SAYS.

My father would have been made a bishop much earlier than he was had it not been for me and my image.

When I started modelling, I'd raise my arms and it was all muscle and all the other models had nothing. Really, everybody thought I was a man. I don't have to do much to have muscles. It's just genetic.

I like to isolate myself when I work because I end up losing my voice by doing interviews all day.

Now when I enter a carriage, it almost empties. But there's always one brave enough to stay.

I like working until the morning, so I can see the day and then I like to go to sleep and then get up before sunset. But I love the energy of the morning.

I've turned down millions of dollars to go on reality TV. It's an absolute no-go.

My husband used to shout at my mother, 'What is wrong with your daughter? I'm married to a man.'

My dad's family were political and he was always a theatrical creature, whereas my mum is really musical and her father was the touring pianist with Nat King Cole. My family was an explosive mixture of politics, religion and music - no wonder I turned out how I did.

Women and men grow up with both sexes. Our mothers and fathers mean a lot to us, so it's just a question of finding a balance between their influences. I've found mine. And it tends to be more on the male side. I mean male side the way we understand it in the West.

I hate prescription drugs! They don't tell you everything that is in them.

I go feminine, I go masculine. I am both, actually. I think the male side is a bit stronger in me, and I have to tone it down sometimes. I'm not like a normal woman, that's for sure.

I've lived long enough to feel the sway of corporations both legal and illegal. Corporations give you drugs and they prescribe and prescribe them and they can be worse for you. Whereas you have illegal drugs and that is all about moderation. You have to know your body.

Some songs come from my head, some from my throat, but there will always be moments when it is an injection of the soul.

I can look at a fur and tell if it's good or not.

I never do what anyone else is doing. I could walk away from music and become a farmer or do some crochet. The worst thing in life for me is to do something I'm not happy doing.

Prescription drugs can be even worse than illegal drugs. The only difference is the legality.

In Jamaica we had the English way of schooling from the age of four, so when I got to America I was already a few years advanced because I started school at the age of three-and-a-half rather than six and my grades moved up accordingly. In America, they start you at school at six because the grades are different. I had to take a test and they didn't know what to do with me. It wasn't that I was any smarter; I had just started younger. All of a sudden I was jumped from eighth to tenth grade. They said I was very smart, but I was only smart in languages, really.

Music has its own depths, and I let it take me where it takes me, even if it means stripping all my clothes off.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

I think I'm doing a service to black women by portraying myself as a sex machine. I mean, what's wrong with being a sex machine, darling? Sex is large, sex is life, sex is as large as life, so it appeals to anyone that's living, or rather it should.

I wear my furs all the time. I wear like three different ones in a day.

For some reason, I can inspire things that are in good taste, but then sometimes I can also inspire, like, wooooow. Some producers have this really sexual idea, and they're like, "Now I can do this, with her!" And I will just go: non, non, non. That's not me, it's you. You're projecting, man.

I don't think 'pop' should mean that you had no talent.

I love women, but I've never had a relationship with a woman.

You can be a boy, a girl, whatever you want. I have a lot of man in me.

Whatever; bling always has something to hide.

I've had more misrepresentations than I can handle, and people have told the wickedest lies about me. A lot of them have taken their frustrations out on me, and I don't like that because it can wound. Not necessarily me, but those around me. Journalists can be so bad.

Forget health clinics and gyms. Sex is the best cure. One good night of sex and your problems are gone.