I've never been ambitious.

French women don't have too many clothes - a few good pieces that last for a while and are classic and timeless.

I am a believer in change peu a` peu (little by little) since drastic changes, including lots of changes made all at once, are often the sort of modifications that don't stick.

French women love to shop and prepare food. They love to talk about what they have bought and made. It's a deeply natural love, but one that is erased in many other cultures. Most French women learn it from their mothers, some from their fathers. But if your parents aren't French, you can still learn it yourself.

I love my kitchen. For Manhattan, I have a rather decent-size kitchen, and it has an opening that gives out to the dining room, which has a window with a view of the city and in the distance the Statue of Liberty.

I'm not a great consumer. I always ask myself, 'Do I really need that piece?' I have friends who have 300 pairs of shoes; how would you leave the house in the morning?

Make treating yourself a priority and always remember your life is happening now. Don't put off all your dreams and pleasures to another day. In any balanced personal definition of success there has to be a powerful element of living life in the present.