The problem with Yves Saint Laurent was that he was a man who understood his time period better than anyone, but he didn't like it. Real artists live their own lives in parallel. It's the artist who transforms his times.

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.

Love is what makes me live, quite simply. It's the only thing that makes me work. It made me become what I am today.

I am faithful up to the point of death. It's the only thing I respect. I never abandon anyone. I'm not talking about sexual relations. I'm faithful in my friendship, my admiration.

When journalists come to interview me, it's a part of my life that is exhibited, as if pieces of clothing are being taken off one by one. But it's not very important really.

You don't spend every day saying, "Gosh! That's so beautiful." Sometimes you look at an object more attentively and see it anew. I won't talk of any one object in particular. For me there is no hierarchy in art. Things have an inherent quality or they don't.

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.