“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.”

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 think of myself as a positive person. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had a child.

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.

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

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

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

Be vigilant! Be vigilant! If an evil is minor, resist it nonetheless. If a good deed is trifling, perform it all the same. Only wisdom and virtue can truly win men’s devotion.

I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.

I’ve always seemed to have my best performances when I’m under the most pressure.

The act of creation, as you very well know, is a lonely and private matter and has nothing to do with the public area… the performance of the work one creates.

You have respect and reverence for your characters and the fact that you’re going to epitomize that person for the rest of their lives. They’re going to be judged based on your performance by millions of people. You have a certain responsibility.

I never understood the need for a “live” audience. My music, because of its extreme quietude, would be happiest with a dead one.

The performance has developed to such an extent in recent years that it challenges the music itself and will soon threaten it with relegation.

A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.