Where Chanel came from in France is anyone’s guess. She said one thing one day and another thing the next. She was a peasant—and a genius. Peasants and geniuses are the only people who count and she was both.

One thing I hold against Americans is that they have no flair for the rain. They seem unsettled by it; it's against them: they take it as an assault, an inconvenience! But rain is so wonderfully cleansing, so refreshing, so calming...

The future holds a golden world. It will be for beauty; it will be for intelligent productiveness.

God was fair to the Japanese. He gave them no oil, no coal, no diamonds, no gold, no natural resources — nothing! Nothing comes from the island that you can sustain a civilization on. What God gave the Japanese was a sense of style—maintained through the centuries through hard work and the disciplines of ambition.

Unshined shoes are the end of civilization.

I wasn't a fashion editor. I was the one and only fashion editor.

Exaggeration is my only reality.