True elegance for me is the manifestation of an independent mind.

Women who stay true to themselves are always more interesting and beautiful to me: women like Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe and Anna Magnani - women who have style, chic, allure and elegance. They didn't submit to any standard of beauty - they defined it.

If we are completely honest with ourselves, everyone has a dark side to their personalities.

I started modeling at 28. I'm 5-feet-7 1/2, and I never went on a diet. I followed what my doctor told me: 'It's good to have a little bit of fat. Your weight is fine. Don't go any lighter.'

In interviews, the first question I get in America is always: 'What do you do to stay young?' I do nothing. I don't think aging is a problem. What irritates me a little is growing fatter. It irritates me that if I eat what I want to eat, it shows.

Before Darwin, our world was very religious. People saw altruism as something given by God for us to be good so that we could go to Paradise.

The reason of my life is not to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

If you look at most beauty advertisements, you would think that makeup is only for beautiful women in their early twenties.

Food is a big part of my culture, so everyone knows how to cook. When I came to America and asked a babysitter to softboil an egg for my son and she didn't know how, I was shocked.

Animation translates well to a small screen. When you look at Walt Disney or Chuck Jones - you know, Bugs Bunny - there really isn't any difference if you watch on a very big screen or a computer screen.

It's a new business for me to be a filmmaker.

There are so many spiders, and their rituals, their mating rituals, their courtship ritual, can be very, very different.

There is often a great disparity between a director's personal style and the movies he makes.

I loved modeling. I absolutely loved it. I was so happy to get the cover of 'Vogue' - 23 times. I keep each copy. I made more money as a model than as an actress or as a filmmaker. In monetary terms, beauty pays more than anything.

I've had a lot of 'aha' moments, but the big 'aha' about growing older is the mental freedom.

There are consequences with age, so you have to evolve. I've loved becoming a filmmaker. But I would love to continue modeling, and there isn't really any job for me. It's being marginalized - that's the sad part.

I always have parmigiano-reggiano, olive oil and pasta at home. When people get sick, they want chicken soup; I want spaghetti with parmesan cheese, olive oil and a bit of lemon zest. It makes me feel better every time.

When I was a teenager, I thought maybe I'll be a filmmaker, making film documentaries. My dream when I was a girl was I would be hired by 'National Geographic' or work with David Attenborough, but it didn't happen. I became a model.

In America, they are paranoid about ruining the reputations of people once they are dead and cannot answer back. They have this fascination which to me seems cruel and morbid. I do not want any part of it.

I became an actress way into my 30s because I thought that I had to find my own way, and that's why I worked so much in modelling, until I realised that the differences between acting and modelling weren't that great. I always say that modelling is a little bit like being a silent actress.

I live in New York, but I am always delighted to come to Europe because I am European and grew up here until I was 20. I am not only Italian, I am partly Swedish. When my parents divorced, I was three years old and went to live in Paris... when I am offered a film in Europe, I come with great enthusiasm!

I wanted to make a film about my dad, a sort of love letter, and explain what I understood of his cinema, which was so utopian. I also wanted to give the sense of his cinema, because they have never been very big box-office, but they were very influential.

I was born with a love of animals, the same way I was born with brown hair. When I was a little girl in Rome, I always had pets, which I adored.

My father's films are often very slow for the modern audiences, which are used to a lot of editing. It's the audience that watches the film instead of the director dictating the reaction he wants from you.

Mammals are very close to us, but bugs are strange. They're more mysterious and exotic.

The first time I went to Hollywood, I was 25 years old. My background was mostly Italian.

To be an icon is a big job - it's beyond acting. And sometimes it pays, and sometimes it doesn't.

These same people seem to forget that mother also took a lot of chances with the type of roles she played.

Although Dorothy in Blue Velvet was humiliated and hurt by men, basically I could react to how she felt.

I am now at an age when they wanted me to play her mother.

I didn't want to become an actress because the competition with my mother would have been to much to live up to.

But I don't really see myself as a role model. I'm not a dictator, or someone who wants to be adored!

I am much more radical in my beliefs than my products represent me to be.

A lot of the advertisement is done by saying: first of all, have a complex about who you are.

I like to extend myself as an actress and David really helped me.

There is this idea that you have to play heroines or women who succeed.

But my mother loved The Elephant Man, and my father gave David Lynch a scholarship to study in Rome.

When David left me I became totally brokenhearted.

The red carpet has become like a parallel business. The next day, there are TV programmes, and magazines, and it's all, 'Do you like the dress or not like the dress?' and 'Did she look fat?' To keep borrowing dresses and jewellery is like a full-time job. And you have to be a fantasy, which you can never be, so you always feel depressed.

One of the great issues in biology is the origin of altruism - of why you would do something for someone else that could hurt you - and Darwin posited that it might be rooted in maternal instinct, in sacrificing yourself for your children.

When I grew up in Italy in the 1950s, it was still very agricultural. Food was very important; produce was very important. Everyone made their own olive oil. It took me a long time after I moved here to understand that Americans are much further away from their food.

I live my everyday life as a person, and I react to my photos from a certain distance. When I look at a photo, I detach myself and look at it as a product - not as me, Isabella.

I don't wear much makeup, except during work. I felt lucky to be chosen to be a model. I used to joke, 'The next best thing to winning the lottery is having a beauty contract.'

I'm always a little worried when people have met me in person because I'm worried they'll be disappointed.

It always amazed me that people believed I was this beautiful object.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always loved animals and been fascinated with them.

You don't do an experimental film to become rich, so the people who are involved are involved because they enjoy the creative aspect of it.

I have the most fun writing and directing. And I always choose myself as the lead actor.

I would love to be a field biologist. I would love to do what Jane Goodall did, just totally immerse myself in the life of one specific species for years and study every aspect of its behavior until little by little, all of these patterns become clear. That would be great, but I don't know if I have it left in me.

I seldom look at myself to avoid any self-criticism.