Top 35 Quotes & Sayings by Iman Abdulmajid

As a young girl, I was much more preoccupied by my flaws. Everyone teased me because of my long, skinny neck. To hide my so-called deformity, I was wearing a turtleneck when I was 3! Yet my neck is probably my best asset. At the end of the day, what counts is the entire package.

The one thing I know for a fact - some days are bad, some days are okay, and I'll go with it. If it's bad, I stay in and ride the wave and somehow, God gets me through and I'm fine. Dealing with grief doesn't work from one person to the other, it's so personal.

For me, diversity whether you think of it as race or gender, it's not a trend, it's a human movement, it's a human feeling, it's a human desire.

I'm quite insufferable about fitness, I suppose. I think it's really important, though I'm not a body nut.

When 9/11 happened, 12 of our neighborhood firemen were killed. I looked around at the country that had adopted me and I became an American.

My father taught me how to be a parent and gave me a positive connection with men because he is a gentleman.

People might want to think, "We don't need it," but you know, we can't stop it. It's a movement, which means that it's moving, whether you like it or not, it's going to move.

A self-esteem issue doesn't change whether you're considered beautiful or not because it's about what's inside you.

My saving grace was that I always knew when to leave the party.

I come from Somalia. We start working young, and we understand that kind of life. I would be bored to death not doing anything creative.

The child must come first above all else. And pace yourself every day. There is quite a lot you will have to give up.

Make sure your decision to have a child is based on the need to share your life completely with another little human being and not because of some personal need for validation as a woman.

If I say something about David [Bowie], I get 1000 tweets, if I say something about my business just a few! The more personal, the better.

The relationship I have with Bethann [Hardison], it's so unique. It's based on trust. But most importantly, Bethann is the one who will call on me if I'm doing something wrong. That's a very specific relationship.

Every generation and every group brings the door into other things.

My worst year. The only thing that I know for a fact now is that if it's really a bad day, then I draw the curtains, and I lay in bed. There is no way of dealing with grief. And I have no idea. This year I had double of them, my mother and my husband. I just take it one day at a time.

There's a lot that I haven't put up there since my husband passed away because then it would be grief everyday. I have to fight within myself at times and ask, 'how do I go through the grief and find a light, even a glimmer of it?'

I came from a background where I was very poor growing up but I have never known poverty. My parents worked hard and they went to bed hungry, but they fed us. Then my father became an ambassador, so I ended up being driven by chauffeurs. And then we became refugees. After that, I looked at it through this "glass" of to have and have not, and at the end of the day, who actually helps, who actually steps up, who is there for you.

Pulling off a zebra-print dress can be challenging for some.

The one thing my mother instilled in me, well both my parents but specifically my mother - I come from a Muslim country where boys were more wanted than girls so she always made me feel that there is nothing that I couldn't do as well as the boys if not better.

There is no age better than another.

We grew up as poor people but we never knew poverty. I still love and miss the Somalia I grew up in. Things changed, when my father became a diplomat later on.

I think it came out of the fact that I'm a very personal person who lives a very public life. It's the only thing that I thought people would want to hear, and it's never about just being inspirational.

The commitment to give of yourself and the knowledge that the time is right are what's important. The thing is, I suppose, a younger person may not correctly divine the right time, because of lack of life experience, so the older woman may have the advantage of truly knowing if it's right or not.

Your image as a model is your currency. That's the only thing you've got. No one cares what you look like in real life. Nobody is going to say the make up guy was terrible. They will say, you look awful and let's not book her again.

There is strength in numbers.

That to be an activist, you have to stay active. For me, it's profound; it's not something you choose to do every five years because it's chic to say it.

Men can get jobs from one country to another, they can get in. But the people who always fell through the cracks were women and children, especially when you are displaced. I've always said, 'I am the face of a refugee.'

Bethann Hardison has been my collaborator, my closest friend, we've gone through starting businesses, losing businesses, kids, divorces, marriages, and she was my maid of honor when I married my husband, David Bowie. And she's still such a part of my life. This is the person when it's totally dark, outside and inside, this is the person I would call.

Don't be afraid to walk away from things that are just not right for you.

One thing my mother always instilled in me is to always know my worth. Don't settle for less. She used to say to me 'Iman, no is a complete sentence, learn to say no. You don't have to explain it you don't have to say anything after it. It's a complete sentence.' So when I came to America 1975, I found out that the black models were being paid less than white models. So the first thing I did was say I'm not going to do the job unless I'm paid the same amount.

I believe in glamour. I am in favor of a little vanity. I don't rely on just my genes. Looking good is a commitment to yourself and to others.

If you are an activist, you have to stay active on a daily basis.

No one is calling any of these designers racist. The act itself is racist. There were more black models working in the Seventies than there are in 2013. This a time when silence is not acceptable at all. If the conversation cannot be had publicly in our industry, then there is something inherently wrong.

The one thing you learn as you get older is that the body will do what the body wants. All you can do is try to guide it a little.