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

I go feminine, I go masculine. I am both, actually. I think the male side is a bit stronger in me, and I have to tone it down sometimes. I’m not like a normal woman, that’s for sure.

I never do what anyone else is doing. I could walk away from music and become a farmer or do some crochet. The worst thing in life for me is to do something I’m not happy doing.

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.

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.

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.

I am quite a romantic person, really, and I should have put that into my music earlier, but I was probably denying it…

Parliament should start earlier in the day and finish earlier. Otherwise I love it.

He is a reversion to an earlier type, the type of the bard, the skald, the poet-seer.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can.

It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.

In language that is permissible in good society, and give it as early if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other reliable medium;

Whether it’s the experiments on ‘MythBusters’ or my earlier work in special effects for movies

Unless action is taken soon – unless we can display the same vision of that earlier period – we will lose the treasure of California’s open space and environmental beauty.