DAPHNE GUINNESS

Through art, you create your own world.

If you go into a relationship when you're 16, you've got no baggage.

I have a four-and-a-half-, nearly five-octave range. I probably should have had extra lessons as a child, as I am certain my family heard my potential, but I didn't. I was in the choir as a schoolgirl, but really, it is all self-taught.

I can't understand it when people are closed-minded. I mean, boy, have I made mistakes and been very wrong. I can't tell you the amounts of times I've been let down, but I still try to see the best in people.

Everyone wants to get behind the red rope, but actually: be yourself, don't believe what you see, don't believe all this marketing.

In fashion, there are so many gangs, if you identify too much with one, you get caught - I would lose my freedom.

We need a government, not politics. Because there's too much politics. Of course there should be debate. But there seems to be so much pettiness and not enough good faith. It is civilized to agree to disagree, and this idea is slowly disintegrating. The great statesmen of the past knew this, and I think it helps drive civilization.

I think it's beautiful to be able to cover yourself in metal. I love the color and the way it reflects. But it is also a protection.

I just am who I am. And then when people label me eccentric or different, I'm kind of astonished because I think, 'This is completely normal. This is just how I am, it's how I've always been.'

Oh, I love tea. I have to take tea bags wherever I go.

I've been really upset sometimes when I've been misquoted. And it's the one thing they use in big print. Or it's taken out of context. Thoughts are fluid and words are sticky. That's the thing.

Life is full of banana skins. You slip, you carry on.

I don't like to look at myself in the mirror, which is why my eye makeup is always crooked.

I never read gossip press. I just read books. And I never switch on the TV anymore.

There hasn't been anything real since grunge. That was the last movement led by music or an art form.

Writing is a funny thing. It's not like you're working on a schedule. It comes in fits and starts.

I think the world's just gone completely mad, with everyone wearing the same things, even celebrities.

My life has always somehow been played out in a minor key, unresolved. Art somehow resolves things for me.

I practice stoic philosophy. As a human being, you may have emotions, but these don't need to affect your soul. The two are not one.

I treat clothing or a piece of jewelry like it was a piece of art, even though people who collect clothes get a bad rap because they're told it's all vanity.

Fragrance takes you on a journey of time. You can walk down the street and pass someone and get taken back 20 years. It's very Proustian that way.

I know sometimes I can come off like a lonely spinster in a tower. That's not me at all.

Seasons are really annoying. You get a really great pair of shoes or a beautiful pair of boots, and then you try to get them again four months later, and they say, 'Oh no, that was last season.'

There are a lot of people who do a lot of things to be outrageous with fashion, hair or makeup.

I think life is about having the mixture of the curiosity of an older person and the imagination of a child.