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

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 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.

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

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.’

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.

If you take my performance or my understanding of the role and my appreciation for story and then dress it in CGI, that I guess becomes an action film.

We’re now the results of our past actions, and in the future we’ll be the results of the actions we’re performing now.

Each day when you wake up, say: “What miracles would you have me perform today?” Then listen.

He who considers too much will perform little.

Give me a guitar and I’ll play; give me a stage and I’ll perform; give me an auditorium and I’ll fill it.

Wise to resolve, patient to perform.

The only thing that I haven’t done is perform brain surgery on myself. I’ve been very, very lucky. I’ve spared Shakespeare undue stress by not doing that.