Diane von Furstenberg

The most important relationship you have in life is the one you have with yourself. And then after that, I'd say once you have that, it may be hard work, but you can actually design your life.

I was lucky enough to have it all. To be successful in business, to have children, to raise them on my own, and to travel and live my life. It was a lot of work, but it's a privilege to have been able to do it.

I wanted to be an independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life - and I became that woman.

I believe that all women should have children. I think women are made to have children and to be mothers. I also think women have to have an identity outside the home.

When I was a little girl, if I didn't eat my soup, my mother would say, 'You have to think of all the Chinese children who have nothing to eat.' But now, for my children, Chinese people make everything, and for my grandchildren, they buy everything.

I had arranged a birthday party for him and my children, who are all Aquarians. Instead, we got married. I ran out of excuses. It was just us and my children.

I've always been inspired by women, and my mission was to inspire women. I always wanted to become a certain kind of woman, and I became that woman through fashion. It was a dialogue. I would see that the wrap dress made those women confident, and made them act with confidence.

Confidence. If you have it, you can make anything look good.

What I think I sell with my clothes is confidence, so hopefully all my dresses, my accessories, are friends to the women. When you open the closet, and your eyes are swollen, and you don't like the way you look, you go to your friends.

Animals come from nature. They were not designed. All my inspiration comes from nature, whether it's an animal or the layout of bark or of a leaf. Sometimes my patterns are very bold, and you can barely see where they come from, but all the textures and all the prints come out of nature.

Beauty is perfect in its imperfections, so you just have to go with the imperfections.

There's design, and there's art. Good design is total harmony. There's no better designer than nature - if you look at a branch or a leaf, it's perfect. It's all function. Art is different. It's about emotion. It's about suffering and beauty - but mostly suffering!