When I began as a model, everybody tried to remold me: I was too fat, too little, they tried to re-shape my teeth - I am very proud that I have stayed as I was.

Real beauty is to be true to oneself. That's what makes me feel good.

Water makes me feel at peace. In Corsica, I spend most of my time on the beaches or in the rivers. That's one reason I love it there so much. The water is so clean and fresh - you can drink it straight out of the rivers! This island is my secret garden.

I love food: hamburgers, pizza, gnocci, mashed potatoes, and especially chocolate. I enjoy eating for the sake of eating. Sometimes I feel sad for the models who don't eat. When you love food, you love life. When you love life, you love to love.

I tell people my breasts were made in Normandy from butter and creme fraiche.

I enjoy being a woman. It's what I learned from years of experience in modeling. You learn how to seduce; how to be sensual, how to play. It's very important for a woman, I think. But it's not by beauty that you seduce. It's a meeting - it depends on the image the other reflects back to you, how they see you and make you feel.

Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a novel that I have read over and over and over again. Tess is a pure child who has an inner glow none of the others in the book possess. They reject her because she is different, and they try in every possible manner to destroy her, because they are jealous. It is an extraordinary love story.