Jimmy Cliff quotes:

I would love to see no more ghettos, but the things is, there's no diplomacy in the ghetto. They want to tell you something, they tell you straight! An upper class, more educated person - they find a diplomatic way to tell you the thing. I love it when you just come heart to heart. That's the way I knew it coming up, so that's the way I like it.

My most important relationships were with my father and grandmother.

It was one of my dreams as a child, growing up in my little village with my cousins. We used to walk together, and I used to say, when you look at the world map, 'This town is there, that town is there, that river is there.' I used to say, 'One day, I'm going to travel these places.'

People in the Hall of Fame tend to clap their hands and say, 'OK, I've done it all,' but for me, it was a new beginning.

I grew up twelve miles outside of Montego Bay. In my early teens, I went to Kingston. It was like a different planet for me. In the country, people are kind. In the city, people are hard an' cold, like the concrete and steel.

In hindsight, I see the great value of family and how it moulded my life and kept me together. So now family means everything to me.

I don't think a songwriter should lose their mojo. In my situation, I'm one of those artists that lasts over a long period rather than have your moment and your moment is gone.

Someone like Katy Perry - I like her writing because I listen to music as a songwriter. I like a lot of her songs - like, 'Firework' is a song that I think I could write.

I used to do a little acting in school. It was my first love, and I really thought I would be doing it as a career. I really wanted to complete that part of my ambition.

I have a career, which is important, but my family is the priority. First family, and then career. It's a delicate balance.

People might say, 'Jimmy Cliff, you've done a lot, achieved a lot. What more can you want?'

Christian values were important at home. Cleanliness. Don't steal. Don't lie. Those were the rules, and they were strictly enforced. Especially the stealing and lying. When you broke the rules, you got a beating. I always broke the rules a lot.

I write songs on a universal basis. I was born out of the earth of Jamaica which I consider to be a part of Atlantis, the sunk continent, but that's my thing. But I write songs on a universal basis, not like Jamaican songs.

If you go out to Hollywood you'll find a lot of fantastic plastic people there in the business and a lot of people in life generally. They find it so hard to be themselves that they have to be plastic.

I visit studios. Just to get the feel, the smell, and see what other people are doing. Not only listening to the radio, but going to studios, greeting musicians and artists, just getting a vibe.

I regret I didn't ever learn how to fly a plane. I had the opportunity when I started to make some money, and I regret I didn't really take the time out and put the effort in and do that.

Rome was not built in a day Opposition will come your way But the harder the battle you see It's the sweeter the victory

When I lived in the U.K., I recorded a lot of ska and rock-steady styles of Jamaican music. But people there weren't accepting it. So I began using a faster reggae beat.

I am not one of those artists who is cemented in one way. I am able to, you know, make the happy, jovial, lighthearted music too. We need that in life too. So it's like that to me.

The music that I represent and helped to create and establish was born in Jamaica.

If I could change one thing about myself... I would try to control my generosity.

It was the vehicle that propelled me to international stardom. ("Harder They Come") I was known as a singer/songwriter before that, but people did not know me as an actor. It showed the world where the music I contributed to create was coming from. It opened the gates for Jamaican music, internationally.

I grew up in a condition where I could have chosen to go either way, negatively or positively. So I kind of chose to go positive and that stayed with me through my life, always have to have a positive outlook on whatever situation there is

Basically, I'm motivated to write about sociopolitical issues as well as relationships. I think those themes have stayed with me throughout my life.

Beyond everything else, that's one of the things that kept us going, that keeps me going, you know, the eternal love, knowing that I am in the love of the all and all love is in me.

I'm an artist. And I'm happy that I was there at the commencement of this music, this Jamaican music, to put my contribution and help to establish it.

My pigment is of the earth, and collecting my sacred fire from my solar plexus with the central sun of the earth.

Got your mind set on a dream, you can get it though how hard it may seem.

Rastafari means to live in nature, to see the Creator in the wind, sea and storm. Other religions pointed to the sky, and while we were looking in the sky, they dug up all the gold and diamonds and went away with them

Good thinking brings good feeling and good feeling brings good thinking.

I've got a hard road to travel and a rough, rough way to go. Said, it's a hard road to travel and a rough, rough way to go. But I can't turn back, my heart is fixed, my mind's made up, I'll never stop, my faith will see me through.

I love to create and that's what gives my soul the satisfaction.

In the country, people are kind. In the city, people are hard an' cold, like the concrete and steel.

I'd rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave.

I don't know where life will lead me, but I know where I've been. I can't say what life will show me, but I know what I've seen. Tried my hand at love and friendship, but all that is passed and gone. This little boy is moving on.

I had the global outlook that I really wanted to capture the world. I would like the attention of the world at least and I wanted that.

I was a songwriter and I've written some good songs, but there are lots of greater songs that I know I have inside yet to come out.

And I keep on fighting for the things I want. Though I know that when you're dead you can't. But I'd rather be a free man in my grave, than living as a puppet or a slave.

My role is the shepherd's role. The shepherd is the one who opens the gate and allows the flock to go through and whoever opens the gate has to close it, and the gate is not yet closed.

I've done a lot of things to become what I've become, out to create and establish a musical form and I call it movie.

I would love to see no more ghettos but the things is, there's no diplomacy in the ghetto. They want to tell you something, they tell you straight!

Since we're coming into a rebirth, and there's a consciousness of health, because the disease that is death, we are able to overcome that.

I think we all have a role to play in life.

I have not become the artist I believe I am. I want to become a stadium act. I'm not done at all.

We're coming into a rebirth of the planet. And some cultures have echoed it, such as the Mayans have echoed that, and it came from the ancient Egyptians.

We're not to be surprised at all what we see happening in every part of the world. It's a change of the return of things.

Just over two thousand years ago, this planet went through a change, and it's a normal thing for every two thousand three hundred years a planet to go through a new change; new laws, new things is happening.

Look at what's happening with scientific things. They have discovered dark matter. They have discovered what is called the God Particle. All that is going to make religion obsolete. These are the things that are amazing, and it's an amazing time to be living in. It's a higher energy that we're going to be coming into.

I live between Jamaica and Paris.

I'm very attached to my family and protective of them and miss them, and that situation, my connection with that can make me become very vulnerable.

If I don't channel pain into a song, I play my guitar or play the piano or play my drums, or go swimming.

Social justice has always been a part of my inspiration. For example, when the Vietnam War was going on, I wrote a song about that.

The love is the part of us that can never go. It's the essence that was always there, so that can never go.

Everyone needs to realize why am I here? It comes in everyone's life; you ask why am I here? What am I doing? Once you are able to answer that question for yourself honestly, you have smooth sailing.

We need that expression. Whether we want to call it protest or not, we need to express and echo the echoes of the people. Artists need to do that.

Certain artists have a role to echo the echoes of the people and that's what I'll be doing on my next album.

It's important for me to go back into the ghetto, where I'm from. I still get my oxygen from there. I don't live in the ghetto but every time I go back, I'm seeing the same things that I lived. That's one of the things I mean when I say, "My feet back onto the ground."

People might say, 'Jimmy Cliff, you've done a lot, achieved a lot. What more can you want?