Top 95 Quotes & Sayings by Iman - Page 2

I would go to cosmetics counters and buy two or three foundations and powders, and then go home and mix them before I came up with something suitable for my undertones.

I'm always criticised by other Somalis and Muslims for what I'm doing as a model and married to a white man and all that.

I was never a practicing Muslim. But I do consider myself a Muslim.

I don't love eating meat. I really only like chicken and fish.

I've always said if what I'm going to create doesn't look good on everybody, I'm not going to do it.

I tell all my younger friends, 'Don't be afraid of change. That is when you truly see what your destiny is.'

When I started modeling, they tried to pay black models less than they paid Caucasian models. I turned down those jobs because I knew what I was worth.

I am so far more secure and more grounded and more know who I am than when I was in my 20s.

I have a 15-year-old daughter who thinks that I always had this self confidence that I have now at the age of 60. And I always tell her that what she is going through - the low self-esteem as a teenager - that is a right of passage.

I have no intention of ever writing beauty tips on how to make an African-American nose look slimmer or Asian eyes look bigger. That's degrading. Asian eyes are what's beautiful about you and what makes you different.

I thought at 46 years old, I've been removed from the fashion industry for 10 years. I couldn't possibly write a model's book. That's for a 20-year-old. But I could say what I want to say without chastising the industry.

I was raised to treat my body as a temple, but even as a little girl, I had a major issue with self-esteem. I thought there was something wrong with the temple.

Italian was my first foreign language. I speak it better than English.

When everyone is telling you, 'You're so beautiful, there's nobody like you,' you begin to think it's true. But of course there is nobody like you.

We all have friends and loved ones who say 60's the new 30. No. Sixty's the new 60.

We never do Valentine's dinner, because everybody, they look. On Valentine's, imagine me and David going to a restaurant! Like, everybody's going to say, 'Did they talk? Did they hold hands?' Twenty years. We've been married twenty years!

I beg you, don't use the verb, 'discover', I hate it. What does it mean, that I didn't exist before?

I can't stand my legs, for a start, and you rarely see me in skirts.

I was studying political science; I was adamant that I was going to follow in my father's footsteps.

At the end of the day, a 34B doesn't give you self-esteem.

I was a very nerdy child. I never fit in, so I became laboriously studious.

I can enjoy what I'm engaged in and be fully present rather than planning my answers to questions while someone else is speaking or thinking about my next appointment while my current engagement is still in in progress.

We never wore burkas because Somalis had our own culture.

I arrive in New York on October 15, 1975. On my own, by the way.

We all want what every girl wants: to look fabulous while we're out there ruling the world.

Nobody has ever said to me that I was pretty, 'til I met Peter Beard.

People get numbed when they see picture after picture, year in and year out, of people starving.

I was under 18, and to leave Kenya to come to the United States, to get a passport, you had to be 18. So I lied and said I was 19 to get the passport, because otherwise, I had to have permission from my parents, and my parents would never have let me come.

I wanted a bronzer so I could look like I just came from Ibiza everyday.

I was admittedly comfortable with Iman Cosmetics being identified as a beauty brand that filled the gap for black women because it was deeply personal for me.

I speak five languages besides mine. I went to school in Egypt because girls weren't allowed to go to school in Saudi Arabia. It's very restricting, especially for girls; we're not allowed to go anywhere.

When I was in high school,we were, like, 4,000 or 5,000 students, and 50 girls - and I didn't have a date for my prom. My father paid my cousin to take me.

That is something that my mother instilled in me at a very young age - to know my self-worth. And I have had times again and again in the fashion industry where all of that was tested and I rose to the occasion because I was told that I am worthy and I should be able to walk away from something that is not worthy of me.

You want a career? Do that first. You don't want to have kids? Then don't. You don't want to get married? Then don't. But once you do something, you've got to know that there is compromise.

I had never seen 'Vogue.' I didn't read fashion magazines, I read 'Time' and 'Newsweek.'