Top 134 Quotes & Sayings by Grace Jones - Page 2

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

Religion has stayed with me even though I rebelled.

More having to do whatever anybody said you had to do. I couldn't really do anything on my own. But as I got older and then came to America and then Grace became my name, it somehow freed me. All of a sudden, I can be this other person.

They used to call me Firefly when I was a little girl, and I always tried to figure out why I was being called a firefly. I was really black, black, black from the sun. After being in Jamaica for 13 years, my eyes were really beady and white, and my skin was really black. I must have really looked like a fly. My eyes looked like lights, like stars.

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.

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.

The problem with the Dorises and the Nicki Minajes and Mileys is that they reach their goal very quickly. There is no long-term vision, and they forget that once you get into that whirlpool, then you have to fight the system that solidifies around you in order to keep being the outsider you claim you represent.

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.

My mum was very glamorous, an incredible seamstress. She made up those Vogue, Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent patterns they used to sell. It was church couture, darling! Because my dad was a pastor, she could get away with more than other women. Her skirts were that bit tighter.

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

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

You can't expect your children to be perfect.

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.

For me, a diva is like the great opera singer, the great film star - out of reach, in their own world, with a real gift for invention: attention-demanding performance artists with a flamboyant, compelling sense of their own importance so special and inimitable it verges on the alien.

Sometimes we'd have to climb a tree and pick our own whips to be disciplined with. When you had to pick your own whip, you knew you were in for it.

I wanted to be a 'jungle mom', where you're giving birth and getting up and doing things straightaway.

Even though the agency kept me pretty busy, I auditioned for every play and film I could find. But they all wanted a black American sound, and I just didn't have it. Finally, I got tired of trotting around and took myself to Paris.

It's important that the sexes understand each other.

You had to wear a hat to go to church. We weren't allowed to straighten our hair. We couldn't wear jewellery, nail polish, open backed shoes, skirts above the knee... trousers were forbidden because male apparel on a female was not godly.

I have been so copied by those people who have made fortunes that people assume I am that rich. But I did things for the excitement, the dare, the fact that it was new, not for the money. And too many times I was the first, not the beneficiary.

There is some Eighties music that is just timeless. The melodies, the lyrics... I called it church. Church in club. You can shout and dance. The best of the Eighties was club church.

I don't party now, and nobody really knows how to party with me anymore. So I stay in a lot. I really am a home person.

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

It's the nature of man to give and receive - to be man and woman, all in one.

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.

I've changed. I'm not worried about what people think, because I think people think what they want to think anyway.

My brother used to get beaten up all the time because he was very effeminate.

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

I like conflicts. I love competition. I like discovering things for myself. It's a childlike characteristic, actually. But that gives you a certain amount of power, and people are intimidated by that.

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

I am an actress first, a singer second.

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 had no childhood, really, so I imagined more than played, and that definitely led to my showbusiness image, the theatrics and the drama of my life.

I like to experiment, and as an actress, I always thought it's good to be open about a lot of things.

I don't wear jewelry, so I wear furs. I don't have diamonds.

Fear is fear of fear, I think.

If you want me to work with you, then come with an idea. Come with music.

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

Whatever; bling always has something to hide.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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'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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.