Beauty is being comfortable and confident in your own skin.

Looking good is a commitment to yourself and to others. Wigs, killer heels, Pilates, even fillers - whatever works for you, honey.

Eliminating the things you love is not wellness. Wellness feeds your soul and makes you feel good.

Intelligence is sexy. Don't play dumb, especially young girls. Don't play dumb. And let people see that you are intelligent.

Life is too short not to have pasta, steak, and butter.

I suffer from low self-esteem. I had horrible self-esteem growing up. You really have to save yourself because the critic within you will eat you up. It's not the outside world - it's your interior life, that critic within you, that you have to silence.

I wasn't a major in political science for nothing, so I understood the politics of beauty and the politics of race when it comes to the fashion industry.

On a Friday night in 1983, I was in a taxi in New York riding home from dinner with friends. A drunk driver ran a red light and hit the cab, and I was thrown toward the glass partition. I tried to duck, but my face hit the glass, and the impact fractured my cheekbone, my eye socket, my collarbone and several ribs.

My ritual is cooking. I find it therapeutic. It comes naturally to me. I can read a recipe and won't have to look at it again.