When you photograph someone, you have to make them feel good, and you know that they want to look good. It's the same relationship that you have when you apply makeup on somebody. We're almost like shrinks.

Women have to find their own personality, their own style, and what suits them the best.

Women are being more experimental with eye color.

I never stop thinking about names of products. It's a process that happens 24 hours a day.

It really has stayed practically the same. It wasn't like I used to do wild punk make-up: no, I always had the same vision.

I think less is more when it comes to make-up; this really helps achieve a lighter complexion. Heavy make-up creates a canvas and can dull the skin.

Kate Moss makes you dream. She has such a passion for art and the creative process.

There was a time when you would dream about, say, movie stars. Now, you virtually follow them into their bathroom when they're going to the loo.

My mother and my two grandmothers, I was lucky to have three women around me growing up that were very special, very elegant women, very beautiful women. They were my first step into the beauty world, let's say, and then the fashion world, of course.

I never thought make-up was like brain surgery.

I really wanted to have a different approach of beauty because when I came to America, they were still heavily, heavily plastic. The ads were so heavily retouched.

I'm always scared of trends. The runways are always so trend-oriented, but I always feel for the women. The real women that buy cosmetics want to see the trends, but they don't necessarily go for them. And I always encourage women to find what looks best on them.

I fell in love with New York. I moved here 25 years ago in 1984 after I lived in Paris for six years. In the 1980s, it was the place to be. Here I was able to create NARS, which I would not have been able to create if I stayed in France.

I'm very nostalgic - and I don't care.

I think there was a freedom in the 1920s and 1930s: a certain liberty and evolution of women.

I was spoiled growing up in the 1970s because magazines were publishing the photographs of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin without compromise. You really felt that sense of freedom through their images.

I think Edie Sedgwick comes back, too. Every five or six years, there is always something about Edie, because she was so modern and stylish and elegant and hippie-ish, all at the same time. So I think that people will always love her.

Women are very unpredictable.

I loved working with Avedon.

I'm not an easily depressed person.

I love the dramatic idea of having nothing on.

I've seen makeup destroy people and make them look bad if it's badly done.

In a lot of cases, makeup is a fantastic help, and that's why women love makeup in general. It's a fantastic way to help somebody look great. It's not the only way, of course, but it's a major accessory, along with hair, clothes, lighting, all those things.

Being a studio make-up artist and working on magazines was the only thing I wanted to do.

My vision was to create makeup that was more transparent but with formulas that last. I follow my instincts - it's all very spontaneous!

It's one thing to read about how makeup is applied. It's another thing altogether to watch it being put on.

I have always been attracted to faces that are different.

Makeup can make a woman look more beautiful at every age.

Looking at flowers, simple things in life. I don't need to look at gold and a castle; sometimes its very simple things that are very beautiful. I am keeping my eyes fresh to find beauty in many places, and in gold, too, sometimes!

I love so much the models from the '60s and the '70s. They were extremely professional, great models who knew how to work the camera so well and loved fashion and had a great sense of style.

I photographed Alek Wek. She was amazing, and nobody knew about her then. It was a really strong photograph of her.

Working on fashion shows, you work with the designer and try to read his brain - what was in the creative process, what images did he have in his head?

Having worked with so many of the geniuses, I'd learned so much. It's the best sort of photography school, to work with people like Penn or Avedon or Meisel.

I love to collaborate with artists, like Guy Bourdin and Steven Klein, who don't have any boundaries.

The '80s and '90s were the greatest time to be a makeup artist.

I didn't want to create a makeup line for one ethnic group; it had to be multi-ethnic. To me, beauty is beauty. It doesn't matter to me what colour the skin is.

It's very hard for me to photograph someone when I'm not attracted by who they are.

I can't remember the first time, but I've worked with supermodels almost from day one.

I made contours and all that, but in real life, you have to be very careful with that because you can go out in the street and look terrible. All those girls who show how to do contour, they do it quite well, but they're like makeup artists. They're in artificial light.

In this world, you do your job, a good job, and that's what counts.

Some people put a lot of fuss around them. I'm not an entertainer. Let's not get things confused.

It was never in my mind to be famous.

People have to learn that everybody is the same. If you wake up in the morning, even if you're a movie star, you look like everybody else. The reality is that makeup is there to help. That's what it's for.

I launched NARS with 12 shades of lipsticks, and many, many launches later, I'm still most proud of our lipsticks.

I'm always looking to the lightweight superproduct that you apply and almost don't see. That's the ultimate, at least for me.

I hate knowing where people go to the bathroom. You follow them going to pee, to eat - I hate everything when it comes to reality shows!

Go with what you're attracted to.

We are not afraid to be a bit different, to make shades that are bold.

We don't tell women how to look but give them the products and inspiration they need to feel and look beautiful.

I'll keep creating modern, deep, rich and adventurous colors and products that inspire creative expression every day.