“My most important relationships were with my father and grandmother.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 anymore, but every time I go back, I'm still seeing the same things that I lived.”
“People might say, 'Jimmy Cliff, you've done a lot, achieved a lot. What more can you want?'”
“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.”
“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.”