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" At the end of the day, my legacy will not be modelling but my cosmetics line. "

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" Mrs. Obama is not a great beauty. But she is so interesting-looking - so bright. That will always take you farther. "

" I was raised to treat my body as a temple, but even as a little girl, I had a major issue with self-esteem. I thought there was something wrong with the temple. "

" When my daughter Zulekha was born, I was at the pinnacle of my working life as a model, and I pulled myself in two trying to cope with being both a mother and a career girl. "

" 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. "

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

Life Is Too Short

" When everyone is telling you, 'You're so beautiful, there's nobody like you,' you begin to think it's true. But of course there is nobody like you. "

" I wanted a bronzer so I could look like I just came from Ibiza everyday. "

" Italian was my first foreign language. I speak it better than English. "

" We never wore burkas because Somalis had our own culture. "

" I keep on 5 to 10 pounds above my jeans weight, as the ultimate no-filler-needed refresher, and buy a size up on jeans. "

" The truth was I felt ugly growing up. I only really started feeling comfortable in myself when I was 40. "

" There is a lot of noise out there. I don't want to follow the trend - I want to create the trend. "

" I was admittedly comfortable with Iman Cosmetics being identified as a beauty brand that filled the gap for black women because it was deeply personal for me. "

" Multicultural markets are nuanced but not alien. "

" Nobody has ever said to me that I was pretty, 'til I met Peter Beard. "

" I am so far more secure and more grounded and more know who I am than when I was in my 20s. "

" I was born in Somalia, which is in East Africa. My parents started with nothing: poor, poor, poor. They eloped, which was unheard of in my country, when my father was 17 and my mother was 14. "

" I started the cosmetics in 1994 after I stopped modeling, out of my frustration as a woman of color not finding what I needed. "

" My looks have changed. I have laugh lines - not wrinkles. "

" I thought at 46 years old, I've been removed from the fashion industry for 10 years. I couldn't possibly write a model's book. That's for a 20-year-old. But I could say what I want to say without chastising the industry. "

" I have no intention of ever writing beauty tips on how to make an African-American nose look slimmer or Asian eyes look bigger. That's degrading. Asian eyes are what's beautiful about you and what makes you different. "

" Modeling gave me so many experiences, like traveling and being exposed to global cultures, but the most valuable lesson has been working with designers who truly are visionaries in their field. "

" I tell all my younger friends, 'Don't be afraid of change. That is when you truly see what your destiny is.' "

" I did not want to get involved with a rock star. No way. It is not a sane thing to do. "

" I have a 15-year-old daughter who thinks that I always had this self confidence that I have now at the age of 60. And I always tell her that what she is going through - the low self-esteem as a teenager - that is a right of passage. "

" I don't look like a white woman. I look Somali. "

" I am the face of a refugee. I was once a refugee. I was with my family in exile. "

" You want a career? Do that first. You don't want to have kids? Then don't. You don't want to get married? Then don't. But once you do something, you've got to know that there is compromise. "

" When I lived in Egypt, we always wore kaftans. I had cashmere kaftans from Halston. You put on a kaftan in your backyard, and it's like you're in Ibiza. "

" I believe in glamour. I am in favor of a little vanity. I don't rely on just my genes. "