If your ceiling is falling down, don't you call someone in? I apply the same principle to myself.

I'm a working woman of 80 trying to work out what the image I can project is. How I can do it with, you know, dignity.

I was friends with Salvador Dalí until the day he died. Lucky me. I can't say why. I didn't live to be noticed, I lived to enjoy the excitement of doing right that day, and I knew I was doing it right when they would have me back. That was the thrill for me. I yearned to be validated because my mother was stern and I never did much right, that's how I perceived it.

I have had more magazine covers in the last 25 years than I have had in my whole elongated career. [...] Today I am in a territory that business considers unmarketable: age and white hair. Slowly, however, I started to own that territory little by little because I stood up for age.

Facion goes in cycles but nothing has changed. When it's ridiculous it's more ridiculous than ever, and when it's wonderful it becomes more wonderful than ever because now more people think: "I dress the body I have, not I have to change the body to wear the fashion." That's what I admire about the growth of the fashion industry. I also think it's wonderful that there is the opportunity to use different textures and fabrics on different colour skins. I am inspired by that.

I'm loath to do interviews. What comes out is generally not what I meant or thought I was saying or thought they were asking.

My life has been amazing. How many other ladies of 76 can say that the snapshot on their senior citizen's card was taken by Norman Parkinson?