I'm not an ascetic and please don't use the word zen, which is so lightly bandied about these days. Being zen . . . It's shameful to talk in such a way. I haven't become an ascetic but I'm not going to build up another collection. I'm going to create my new environment. I already know what I want.

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.

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.

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 met Andy Warhol in the '60s, a wonderful time, with wonderful people. There was Fred Hughes, and Jed Johnson, who I liked a lot. Jed Johnson decorated my apartment in New York, at the Pierre. It was his first job.

Geographically speaking, I was born on a French island - the île d'Oléron. Otherwise, I come from a milieu where culture was of the utmost importance. I learned music even before I learned to read. I always read books beyond my years.

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.