The Germans told me "Were going to conquer the world!" and I dont regr — Amanda Lear

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

"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."

"I dont care when I was born, if Im 50, 60 or 70. Its important that I am alive."

"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."

"In Italy Im big because theyre all so sex-obsessed. In Germany I succeeded because theyve been waiting for someone like Marlene Dietrich to come along ever since the war. I played on their need for a drunken, nightclubbing vamp. And Ive won the gays, who are crucial because they have all the best discos, entirely because of the extraordinary legends about me."

"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."