Shock always sells. You know? But you could shock in good taste.
— Grace Jones
I always had to mask my emotions. I could never show that I missed my mom or my dad, especially when they moved to America. My grandparents were tough. I was not allowed to receive letters that had not been read before. Everything was controlled - everything!
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 feel feminine when I feel feminine. I feel masculine when I feel masculine. I am a role switcher.
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 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 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.
My brother used to get beaten up all the time because he was very effeminate.
This is what I would say to my pupil: 'You have become only your fame and left behind most of who you were. How are you going to deal with that? Will you lose that person forever? Have you become someone else without really knowing it? Do you always have to stay in character for people to like you? Do you know that you are in character?'.
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.
I like to experiment, and as an actress, I always thought it's good to be open about a lot of things.
Mum was a high-jumper and qualified to go to the Olympics, but it got into the newspapers that she was married to my father, and the church put pressure on her to pull out of the Olympic team, saying, 'You can't be exposing all your legs.' That's how strong the influence of the church was on us all.
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.
Human beings should stick together. Honestly, if I see a red-haired person with blue eyes now, I say, 'Is your granny black?'
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.
If you want me to work with you, then come with an idea. Come with music.
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've changed. I'm not worried about what people think, because I think people think what they want to think anyway.
Yelling between people in love is normal.
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.
Fear is fear of fear, I think.
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.
Religion has stayed with me even though I rebelled.
Some people are both genders. I think you just come out the way you come out, and you have to embrace it honestly.
People always like to make me seem taller than I am.
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.
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.
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 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.
I don't wear jewelry, so I wear furs. I don't have diamonds.
Normally, I stay away from politics - unless I'm going to run for president.
Be like Sasha Fierce. Be like Miley Cyrus. Be like Rihanna. Be like Lady Gaga. Be like Rita Ora and Sia. Be like Madonna. I cannot be like them, except to the extent that they are already being like me.
I'm always rebelling. I don't think I'll ever stop.
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.
It's the nature of man to give and receive - to be man and woman, all in one.
I was born into a very religious family where everything was about setting the right example for the community and having to obey orders blindly. I felt that everyone was growing up in the world, except me. This is probably one of the reasons why I had such a rebellious attitude towards any form of authority.
Gaga came to me, and I just could not find a soul. I come from church; maybe that has something to do with it. I like to get to the soul of a person. I just didn't feel a soul.
It's important that the sexes understand each other.
I'm a man-eating machine.
I only move forwards, never backwards, darling.
Hiding, secrets, and not being able to be yourself is one of the worst things ever for a person. It gives you low self-esteem. You never get to reach that peak in your life. You should always be able to be yourself and be proud of yourself.
Listen to my advice; I have some experience. In a way, it is me being a teacher, which is what I wanted to be. I still feel I could go into teaching. What is teaching but passing on your knowledge to those who are at the beginning? Some people are born with that gift.
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.
You don't do oysters and red wine together. That's a no-no; you just don't do that. I love a nice white wine with oysters.
I was a go-go dancer, too. I called myself 'Grace Mendoza' to fool my parents.
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 wanted to be a 'jungle mom', where you're giving birth and getting up and doing things straightaway.
I am not a diva: I am a Jones. 'Diva' is so overused. Diva, icons, the whole thing, legends... To be a diva, what is that?
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.
I was skinny as a rail and had high cheekbones and a very interesting face - or so I was told.
