I think one thing I've learned over the years is just that you're not going to ever please everyone, and the most important person to please is yourself.

I'm very organic in nature with my creativity. It just kind of wraps around me, or it's a moment I have, a click of inspiration. It's never calculated.

There probably wasn't a day that went by in high school that I wasn't bullied either physically or verbally. It made me stronger, and I knew I had to stay steadfast to what I believed in.

I think because of the eccentricity of my work and how I dress, people expect me to be bouncing off the walls. But that's just not how I am.

The McDonald's icon of the colours and the golden arch, for me, resonates as one of the most iconic images ever.

I don't care if the critics don't like me. I want to be the people's designer, like Diana was the people's princess.

Fashion should have a transgressive nature; it can make you feel like someone else, give you heightened emotion. It should bring you joy and uplift you.

When I was born, my family was so poor that there was no money to buy food. So the church bought groceries for us - there wasn't any kind of privilege.

I've taken a look back at my body of work and tried to deduce an essence, capturing aspects that reoccur. Reflecting on your own product can be difficult yet enthralling.

I have a nostalgia for the years I was growing up and experiencing new things for the first time - so the late '80s and early '90s are always fascinating to me. Those were the times that I was being informed about a lot of my tastes, and so the memories are fused with a lot of emotion.

I softened in my old age.

I fell in love with L.A. To me, it is the most quintessentially American city.

I ultimately do still feel like an outsider, and I do feel, actually, I'm more in the world of music because of how much I participate with musicians - in all aspects, not just clothes.

Sometimes when I'm just really relaxed, that's also a creative time for me, because that's when my mind is more open because I'm not worried or thinking or being very analytical.

For me, actresses are constantly chameleons, and so they are taking a backseat to their own personality. I don't feel like we're trying to show off their personality as much as let them be a blank slate. It's precisely the reason why I dress more musicians than I do actresses.

I'm a very normal person with a very even keel.

I was Hillary in '08. I love Obama, but I was Hillary first, so I was happy to be back there with her again.

I'm an introverted extrovert. My job sets me apart, but I'm not hammy and don't need attention.

I was in heaven when I saw Taraji P. Henson wearing Moschino!

When I had no place to live and I had no place to sleep - and I did sleep in the Metro - I held steadfast to the fact that I had a dream, a reason why I'm doing this... that it was bigger than this moment.

I don't really shop unless it's thrift.

I moved to Paris around 1995 or 1996; my first collection on the runway was in 1997.

There are so many serious things in the world; I just choose not to be one of them.

I'm trying to be the messenger for the people that pay attention to me. And those people I want to help inspire because a lot of people maybe think it's - they're too cool for school. That's all I can ever do.

I think fashion takes itself way too seriously. It's just fashion, people. It's just clothes. It should be frivolous and fun. You're not meant to see it as church and pray to a blouse.

A lot of my collections are informed by nostalgia. I think that's because I loved clothes early on. I remember, at maybe age five, being concerned about what I wore, right down to the underwear.

Posterity is something I'm a big fan of because that's how you leave your legacy. Not to sound pompous, but just to be truthful.

I love MTV, and I love the VMAs. There's no award show like it. It really is the coolest award show, hands down.

I'm a populist. I'm the people's designer... It's important that there are price points that allow people in who maybe don't have the ability to have higher-ticket items - but they can still have something very emblematic of the collection.

I think about my friends all the time when I'm designing. That's always an arbiter. Would Katy wear this? Would Rihanna wear this? Would Sia wear it? Would Miley wear it?

Being pure in my voice has always served me the best. Anytime I've tried to hide my light under a bushel, it's never done me any good.

There have been a lot of challenges, but I'm still standing on my own, and it's quite an achievement knowing that I own my own business and created my own success through hard work and vision.

Even as exuberant as my style is and as over the top as I may be, I can appreciate a classic when it's really well done.

I feel my role is to push boundaries. I don't like things to be safe and sedentary. So controversy is the cross I have to bear.

It was here in L.A., before 'I Kissed a Girl' and all that. She stopped me and told me she was a huge fan and that she was a singer and that one day she hoped that I would dress her. I ended up dressing her for her record release.

An Isaac Mizrahi fashion-show ticket signed by Steven Meisel. I rushed up to Meisel at the end of the show and asked him to autograph the card that had his name and seating assignment on it. It was an incredible moment when he shot the autumn/winter 2014 Moschino campaign.

I don't think the distinction between high and low culture exists anymore.

One thing I have that the majority of other designers don't is humor. That's distinctly my approach, and it was distinctly Franco Moschino's, too.

I like the mix of something farmlike and something futuristic and artsy mixed together. It's kind of both my worlds.

I think Barbie and I are very similar in many respects. That's why she made such a great muse for the summer Moschino collection.

I really don't see little girls growing up and thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to morph myself so I look like Barbie.'

McDonald's, Barbie - they're all icons, recognizable from London to Timbuktu.

I don't make clothes for the critics.

Suddenly, Dallas has become a big part of my life, and now I feel like I'm part of the fabric of the community here.

There's a lot of fashion that I don't respond to and I just walk on. I always look for things that make me happy, and in my work, all I'm doing is trying to convey that joy. Fashion should always be fun.

You don't have to be born wealthy and have an aristocratic last name or have connections or all these things. If you have a dream, you can believe in something and work hard and struggle and fight for it and still have a chance to succeed.

I've been thinking a lot about how we worship celebrity and how we have Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and Jesus all on the same playing field.

My story is the American Dream, a hundred percent.

My country is in the toilet. And when my country is in the toilet, the world is in the toilet.

If Michelle Obama had stepped out in an outrageously priced jacket by an Italian designer, heads would have rolled. People would have said it was deplorable.