Grace Jones’ Best Quotes to Live By: “If You are Lonely When You are Alone, You’re in Bad Company”
There are few people in this world who are as original as Grace Jones. The singer, model, and actress has made a four-decade run out of staying true to herself, and, in the process, has forever left her mark on pop culture. Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyoncé—she paved the road for all of them, raising the visual bar for what an artist could be. As she recently told W, “There are parts of me in a lot of pop culture [figures]. Whether they’re inspired by me or just piggybacking, there’s a bit of that, of course.” Where that quote came from, there’s plenty more. Between her rare interviews and revealing 2015 memoir, ironically titled I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, Jones is a certifiable sound-bite machine. In celebration of Sophie Fiennes’s insightful documentary Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami—which hits theaters today—we rounded up the best Grace Jones quotes to live by.
“Those who demand that you conform the most to how they live are the ones who are the most scared and intimidated by life. ” ―I’ll Never Write My Memoirs
“If you are lonely when you are alone, you’re in bad company.” ―I’ll Never Write My Memoirs
“I can be a pain, but most of all, I can be a pleasure.” ―I’ll Never Write My Memoirs
“One boyfriend told me that I loved myself too much. I thought, Well, you can love a boyfriend too much, but you can’t love yourself too much. Sometimes you have to love yourself to keep yourself whole.” ― I’ll Never Write My Memoirs
“I never ask for anything in a relationship because I have this sugar daddy I have created for myself: me. I am my own sugar daddy. I have a very strong male side, which I developed to protect my female side. If I want a diamond necklace I can go and buy myself a diamond necklace.” ―I’ll Never Write My Memoirs
“I don’t believe in marriage because I don’t believe in divorce. If I had been married, I would have been divorced about five or six times already.” —The Tonight Show
“Instead of penetrating, I think [men] all need to be penetrated once. Then they’ll understand what it’s like to receive instead of give.” ―Grace Jones: Bloodlight & Bami
“I can deliver a good punch. I pack a good wallop. But, of course, you have to be careful because you will end up in court and in jail [laughs]. So I have to use my mouth instead.” ―W
“I like to inspire fierceness and the DNA warrior in women.” ―W
“I don’t consider myself a feminist. I don’t put labels on things, really. I stand up always for being a human. The fact that I am a woman gives more power to it, but I stand up for being a human being. I don’t like the fact that women should be this way and stay in their place. I’m more than a feminist. I believe we are stronger. Women are stronger.” ―W
“I think the men that embrace their female side are the stronger men.” ―W
“ I like dressing like a guy. I love it…. The future is no sex. You can be a boy, a girl, whatever you want. I have a lot of man in me.” ―Interview
“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.” —BBC
“I’m not fashion, I’m style. Creativity makes me want to keep going.” —Vogue Italia
“I don’t find that size-zero, skin-and-skeleton look that seems like you just have not been fed for months beautiful. That to me is not beautiful.” —W
“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. I like to have my own little parties at home, especially now because where is there to go?” —The Guardian
“I don’t know what ‘mature’ means. I still keep my mind open. It’s not stagnant. I’m still very childlike, and I keep a certain naïveté as far as being able to receive information. Once you think you’re mature and you know everything, then you don’t put up the antenna, it’s no longer out there receiving for you.” ―Interview
“I am a child. I think we’re all still children. Always stay an amateur, never a professional.” —The Tonight Show
“I have always been my own psychotherapist since I was very young. I would stand outside myself and talk to myself, talk through whatever was bothering me. There’s a schizophrenic element to it, but I have accepted that part of me since an early age.” ― I’ll Never Write My Memoirs
“Crying is not a weakness. It’s something that should be able to work for you. It should also be a strength. I think if you can cry when you feel like crying it’s a strength. If you feel like crying and you can’t cry, that’s a weakness.” ― Interview
“I’ve always thought maybe I was a cat. I sort of have cat eyes. They don’t really go with my face. That’s what they used to tell me when I started modeling. That’s why I didn’t get many jobs. They’d say, ‘Your nose doesn’t match your eyes and your eyes don’t match your lips. Where the hell do you come from? What are you?’ So I figured I must have been some kind of cat.” — The Joan Rivers Show
“I’ve got a lot of lookalikes. I’ve got a lot of clones. I’ve heard people say, ‘Hey Grace, do you remember last night?’ But I don’t know you. I’m sure it was a clone they were sleeping with.”
“I have three different ages…. Some people think I’ve been married a gazillion times. Some people think I’m a man. Some people think I’ve had a sex change. That’s fine [laughs]. I don’t need to set anything straight because I’ve told a lot of untruths about myself.” —W
“I grew up using my imagination to make reality work for me. In order to make a connection with reality, I made up a world where I could live.” ―I’ll Never Write My Memoirs
“I don’t think in color…. If you think in color, then everyone around you is going to think in color and that puts limits on the way you think. I don’t think like that. A lot of the roles that I’m doing are roles that a man or a person of any color can do.” ―Interview
“I believe that every presidential candidate should see a psychiatrist before they’re allowed to stand.” —The Guardian
“Time is like a space capsule.… We are in space, not time.” —The Guardian
“I think it’s ridiculous trying to categorize people’s feelings…. It’s just do what you feel, when you feel like it, if you feel like it.”
