“Dressing is a way of life. It brings you joy. It can give you freedom and liberation, help you to find yourself and to move without restraint. Isn’t elegance forgetting what one is wearing?”

I cannot pretend to do sculpture and make a woman the ridiculous pedestal of my pretensions. To render clothing poetic, yes–but one must preserve its dignity as clothing.

Playing with fashion is an art. The first rule is don’t burn your wings.

Elegance is no longer significant; clothes have to be fun.

The street and me is a love story. 1971 is a great date because, finally, fashion took to the street.

There are women who have completely transformed my view of fashion.

Isn’t elegance forgetting what one is wearing?

A designer who is not also a couturier, who hasn’t learned the most refined mysteries of physically creating his models, is like a sculptor who gives his drawings to another man, an artisan, to accomplish.

For a woman, le smoking is an indispensable garment with which she finds herself continually in fashion, because it is about style, not fashion.

I tried to show that fashion is an art. For that, I followed the counsel of my master Christian Dior and the imperishable lesson of Mademoiselle Chanel.

I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style.

I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes.

I don’t at all search for an ideal woman, but several ideal women.

Seeing Cubism paintings at the Beaubourg makes me very happy and also old films.

I prefer to shock rather than to bore through repetition.

I love black because it affirms, designs and styles. A woman in a black dress is a pencil stroke.

The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.

And there’s a lot of that stuff with people bringing their kids, kids bringing their parents, people bringing their grandparents.

Four things are laid upon me: to drive out the English; to bring you to be crowned and anointed at Reims; to rescue the Duke of Orléans from the hands of the English; and to raise the siege of Orleans.

I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I’m gonna do it good; I’m going to bring it over the top.

[Responding to trick query about whether she believed herself in a state of grace:] If I am not, may it please God to bring me into it; if I am, may He preserve me in it.

Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

To bring a healthy child into this world, raise them right and watch them grow is the biggest miracle there is.

I hit a grand slam off Ron Herbel and when his manager Herman Franks came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel’s suitcase.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.