Let's talk about that for a moment, about the couple that Yves Saint Laurent and I were. Like all couples we went through "storms," as the Jacques Brel song says. But if there's one area where we never had the slightest disagreement, it was art. Never. Not once. Not about painting, not about opera, not about theater. We were always in complete communion. Of course, that's how all of the collection came into being.

I never abandoned Yves Saint Laurent. I used to have lunch with him twice a week. I also saw him every Saturday. My presence beside him was even more important in his bad times. But that didn't leave me a great deal of room in which to maneuver. Freedom is an intellectual space. But I don't use it.

Let's talk about that for a moment, about the couple that Yves Saint Laurent and I were. Like all couples we went through "storms," as the Jacques Brel song says. But if there's one area where we never had the slightest disagreement, it was art. Never. Not once. Not about painting, not about opera, not about theater. We were always in complete communion. Of course, that's how all of the collection came into being.

I won't make a mark on history. I have some importance in the time we live in, but that's all.

There's nothing that really motivates me anymore and demands that I get up in the morning. In the past it was Yves Saint Laurent.

I carried on buying paintings, works of art, and Yves Saint Laurent, if I may say so, had a right of inspection. We even shared a common reading of the history of art. It would never have crossed Yves's mind to say to me, "Ah, I saw a Pablo Picasso . . ." He knew perfectly well what was interesting with Picasso, as did I.

At the age of 9, I read David Copperfield by Dickens. At 14, I read War and Peace by Tolstoy. They're both books I have reread regularly since.