Jimmy Cliff Quotations

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

My most important relationships were with my father and grandmother.

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

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

The first thing I wanted to be was an actor, even before I wanted to be a singer, before I discovered I could sing.

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

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.

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'm the kind of person who likes to hang out and observe what's going on in the streets, or in certain places. I used to do that a lot. But having to become an international superstar, I can't do that comfortably! But it's all positive, you know.

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?

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 wanted to travel the world - I don't how that idea got in my head, but I really wanted to see the world... towns, cities, countries, I wanted to see them all.

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’ve abused myself a lot over the years. But my voice is still intact – really, it’s better.

I grew up in the church and had always questioned what they were telling me.

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.

Now you can manufacture just about what you want and after just a little time the artist is forgotten and gone.

There are goals that I had set out for myself as an artist. I have accomplished some of them - becoming accepted all over the world - however, other parts of my goals have not been completed.

With acting, you have to become someone else. That's the fun part of it for me - to step outside of yourself and become a character. I guess being Jimmy Cliff is a little bit of a character, too.

It was the vehicle that propelled me to international stardom. 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.

It's phase we're going through. Eventually, what is real will be sought after again.

So as sure as the sun will shine,.I'm gonna get my share now of what's mineAnd then the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all.

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

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

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

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 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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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'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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I live between Jamaica and Paris.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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'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.