What's important to me is to share, and being inspired, and inspiring.

I'm very good at breaking up with people. Very good. It requires a lot of skill, but what you do is you tell them the truth of why you are breaking up with them, and after that, you somehow compensate with other things. If you have loved someone, I think that somehow they should always be a part of your life. I really do.

I obviously don't feel under pressure to look young, because I have had no Botox or surgery. I don't judge people who choose to have it, but I don't want to erase who I am.

The fashion industry has a responsibility to represent a healthy image of women, but to start weighing them and putting them against a wall and making them feel like animals? No.

I am a fast dresser, 30 minutes max with hair and makeup. I don't have a uniform, but I like to be comfortable.

I communicate mostly via e-mail and receive hundreds of e-mails a day.

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.

The Chinese consumer is everybody. It's very simple.

I was 26 when I invented the wrap dress. It was just a nothing little printed dress made out an jersey, and before I know it, I lived an American Dream making more than 25,000 dresses a week.

We need to encourage designers and agencies to be responsible. We need to make sure everyone is sensitive to the issues. But to calculate the girls' body mass - I personally think it is demeaning.

As the president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, I represent the designers. And while we can by no means take the blame for eating disorders, we can play our part in addressing this important issue.

I have always been attracted to clothes designed by women. Coco Chanel, Vionnet, Norma Kamali, Donna Karan. They have a little more - how do I put it? - understanding.

I was a very young girl and I got into fashion very much by accident, wanting to be independent. What was wonderful was that while I was learning and discovering - learning about the work, discovering myself as a woman - I was allowing other women to feel the same way.

Fashion is mysterious, as a rule. Why are blue jeans a classic? You just hit on something that happens to be timeless and right.

I never modeled myself after anyone. The person who had most influence on me was my mother, but it was really for her strength and courage more than her style, even though she had a lot of style. In a weird way, looking at pictures of me when I was 17 or 18, I was dressing the same way. I haven't changed very much.

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.

The best-dressed man is an Italian who is trying to look English, or an Englishman who is trying to look Italian.

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.

I don't think we should always look at the Chinese like they're taking jobs. They are also bring us more and more jobs. Because, they are the biggest growing consumer. I think what is going on in China is exciting.

I used the aspects of being a woman to my advantage, but I worked for myself, not a big corporation, so I was lucky to have the freedom to behave however I liked.

There are emerging countries. I mean, there are countries, you know, China, India, and Brazil, and all of these countries that are emerging. They are building homes. They are building - so there is a new lifestyle.

You need, in your closet, clothes that will - that you can use in many different ways. Clothes that make you fell comfortable, clothes that make you feel 'you.'

Even in a world with much sadness, at its essence, life is beautiful.

Go out into the world with your passion and love for what you do, and just never give up.

I think the only way for you to grow and evolve is to keep listening, keep moving forward, keep jumping in and trying to experience.

I come from a family of musicians.

When I first heard Nina Simone, her naked truth shocked me. Whenever she sang, it felt like lightning bolts in my soul. Every song was like a movie, a unique and very different vignette.

I loved singing something like 'I've Got My Eye On You' when it's really about the FBI. It turns a love song into something else!

I think jazz is the foundation for a lot of great musicians, and then after that, you know, it's this broad expression of things that really have influenced and addressed your life.

My demographic is very broad. Once they come, they had an idea about jazz, and then they hear me, and they come back with sisters, brothers, and kids. My audience looks like America to me.

I love New York City because there's something to do 24/7, something that will make you see things in a whole different light. Like they say, it's the city that never sleeps.

Lizz Wright, we call her lovingly 'Amazing Grace.' She has a folk and gospel kind of approach to the music, and she writes beautiful lyrics and songs. She's like this balm that is really full and very rich and deep.

Jazz is such a living art form. It happens right in the moment. You weave a story by changing certain elements and components.

My friend Harry Belafonte is an activist and musician, an extraordinary man who has dedicated his life to human rights. He taught me the power of words and that music can be used to heal and educate people.

Your voice is not your instrument. Your voice is the character that you build, your innermost feelings, the things that you want to say, and your instrument is the vehicle that you use to carry the message.

When I found out how music made me feel and how my singing made other people feel, that's when I decided this is what I wanted to do.

My mother was actually born in Toledo and raised in Detroit.

When I worked with my uncle, I loved the fact that jazz music demanded that you use your own unique approach.

Art and culture and all of these things - they really matter. They shape your individuality.

I love to create something new every night onstage; that makes a big difference.

The music we do is weaved together through stories and life experiences. When people come to hear us, I hope they are are uplifted and that we give them a lot to take home.

I always have a little bit of Brazil and New Orleans in my band.

My musical selections are a reflection of how I grew up. Because, back then, you could see Miles Davis and Ravi Shankar on the same stage. And nobody thought anything of it, other than the fact that it was great music.

I've always respected and taken care of my instrument.

Jazz musicians have always taken the standards of their time and performed them with a jazz sensibility.

It's funny: I look at songs, and I guess they each tell a story, and the different songs talk about different things. But they're unified by the rhythm underneath and the way that we decided to arrange and play them.

I did a project called 'Sing The Truth,' which was a lot of fun. It started out being a celebration of the music of Nina Simone, and it was me and Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo.

I grew up listening to all kinds of music. When I came up, you would hear people like Marvin Gaye talking about Sarah Vaughan. You would go to a show and see Ella Fitzgerald performing the music of the Beatles.

My musicians know all of my music, and so that makes for something different.

I had aunts who played piano and sang and also were entertainers, so music was very much a part of my life.