I dont care when I was born, if Im 50, 60 or 70. Its important that I — Amanda Lear

"Compilations, to me, are embarrassing. To bring out a compilation, to me, is to say, "Look. Ive got no new material so please buy this. I need money to pay the rent." I think its very embarrassing. And that is very annoying because the record company owns all those titles and they dont ask me for my advice. They just decide to release "the best of" compilations and they put out a lot of very bad quality music. There are a couple of good titles but the rest are just tracks to fill out the album. And they know very well that they cant rely on me promoting them because I wont promote such records."

"Id grown up thinking I was ugly, ugly, ugly. I was much too tall, I was much too skinny, I was flat-chested, I had my mothers Asian eyes and cheekbones so I looked foreign compared to all my girlfriends, my mouth was too big and my teeth were too big so I never smiled. And then Françoise Hardy had her breakthrough in France and everything suddenly changed. Before her you were supposed to look like Brigitte Bardot, blonde, curvy and busty. But I was about twenty when people started telling me "You know what, you look a little like Françoise Hardy, you could be a model" and then out of the blue this famous woman, the great Catherine Harlé turns up. By sheer accident she happened to see me in the street in Paris and asked me if I wanted to be a fashion model and I thought she was joking! And she said "No, no, no, youre exactly the type of girl were looking for" and all of a sudden all of these flaws, all the things Id been so ashamed of, became my greatest assets. By sheer accident, as most things in my career."

"I hate to spread rumours: but what else can one do with them?"

"People only know me as a celebrity and dont realize how much more important art is to me than makeup and set costumes. Show business pays the rent, but painting is my only true passion, so I define myself as a painter who works in show business. Art is a kind of therapy to me, thanks to which I can interpret my feelings. An empty canvas before my eyes is synonymous with the absolute freedom of expression."

"I knew nothing when I first met him. He taught me to see things through his eyes. Dalí was my teacher. He let me use his brushes, his paint and his canvas, so that I could play around while he was painting for hours and hours in the same studio. Surrealism was a good school for me. Listening to Dalí talk was better than going to any art school."

"The Germans told me "Were going to conquer the world!" and I dont regret working with a German record company at all, because for my career it was great, but they wanted to control me, direct me and restrict me. They wanted absolute discipline and thats not the life for me, so after a few years of that I wanted out."