Amanda Lear

I don't care when I was born, if I'm 50, 60 or 70. It's important that I am alive.

— Amanda Lear

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

— Amanda Lear

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.

— Amanda Lear

In Italy I'm big because they're all so sex-obsessed. In Germany I succeeded because they've 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 I've won the gays, who are crucial because they have all the best discos, entirely because of the extraordinary legends about me.

— Amanda Lear

The Germans told me "We're going to conquer the world!" and I don't 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 that's not the life for me, so after a few years of that I wanted out.

— Amanda Lear

People only know me as a celebrity and don't 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.

— Amanda Lear