“If my parents had discouraged me, I would have turned out very differently. They raised me in an open-minded, liberal environment.”

In another life I would love to be a cosmetic surgeon because it’s architectural. You know, you are trying to figure out where the seams go. Can I do it in one piece like Halston? Can you formaldehyde DNA?

I find I can get so much done between midnight and 4 a.m. Everything is quiet, no one is disturbing me, and if I go to bed then, I just lie awake thinking of ideas. They are very creative hours for me. One night a week I crash out, though.

I’m living the exact life I planned on living when I was five.

A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.

Everyday is one less day.

Style is very different from fashion. Once you find something that works, keep it.

I want to make beautiful clothes for women and men who appreciate detail and quality. The product must be the best but this is almost secondary to the service the customer will receive.

I am not a person who is about reality. I am about enhanced reality.

I think people are sick of trends changing every six months – not because we’re tired of them, but just for the sake of change. There is so much junk in the world: junk TV, junk movies, all those junk magazines with the same people on the cover.

From the time we’re born until we die, we’re kept busy with artificial stuff that isn’t important.

You should put on the best version of yourself when you go out in the world because that is a show of respect to the other people around you.

I don’t wear a lot of color. In fact, I don’t actually like color on myself. I love color but it’s very challenging, it’s very powerful, it can overpower you. I think if my eyes were closed and someone put a red jacket on me, I would be able to feel that it was red. I don’t feel great in color.

The Gucci woman – you know what she’s after. The Saint Laurent woman – she’s going to torture you a little bit. You might have sex, but she will drip a little hot wax on you first.

You have to be passionate, you have to be engaged and you have to be contributing to the world.

Never, ever, ever wear anything you are uncomfortable in. Because that is what you’ll project: ‘I look like a fool.’

I’m very direct. I don’t have tantrums. I don’t yell or shout. I do expect an awful lot from my staff, but no more than I expect of myself.

My kids are no different than anyone else’s – they tend to disagree with everything I say!

I try to have a different relationship with the bike. I don’t give it a name, but I always speak with it. I don’t know if the other riders do the same. This is not only a piece of metal – there is a soul. The bike talks back too. But not with a voice, with the components.

Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!

It is dangerous and unbelievably fast and entirely different from the kind of track I am used to racing on.

I’m a huge Aamir Khan fan. I love Aamir, so everything he does is brilliant. We expect something different from somebody like Aamir, whether it’s in promotion, or whether it’s in a film, and plus it has RajKumar Hirani.

Now let’s repeat the non-conformists’ oath: I promise to be different! I promise to be unique! I promise not to repeat things other people say! Good!

I wish is code for I don’t want to do anything differently.

Style is very different from fashion. Once you find something that works, keep it.