The child must come first above all else. And pace yourself every day. There is quite a lot you will have to give up.

There is strength in numbers.

When 9/11 happened, 12 of our neighborhood firemen were killed. I looked around at the country that had adopted me and I became an American.

Men can get jobs from one country to another, they can get in. But the people who always fell through the cracks were women and children, especially when you are displaced. I've always said, 'I am the face of a refugee.'

There is no age better than another.

We grew up as poor people but we never knew poverty. I still love and miss the Somalia I grew up in. Things changed, when my father became a diplomat later on.

Bethann Hardison has been my collaborator, my closest friend, we've gone through starting businesses, losing businesses, kids, divorces, marriages, and she was my maid of honor when I married my husband, David Bowie. And she's still such a part of my life. This is the person when it's totally dark, outside and inside, this is the person I would call.