Grace Jones

“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...”

“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...”

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

“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 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 w...”

“Human beings should stick together. Honestly, if I see a red-haired person with blue eyes now, I say, 'Is your granny black?'”

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

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

“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 intimidate...”

“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. An...”

“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,...”

“I only move forwards, never backwards, darling.”

“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 p...”

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

“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-u...”

“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.”

“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...”

“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 tea...”

“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.”

“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 flamboya...”