Quotes from Naomi Campbell

I like the men to wear the pants. I don't want to wear the pants. I like men who know what they want, know what they're doing, make their own decisions... As much as I like to be the controller, it's not in my best interest.

I started this charity, Fashion for Relief, in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina happened. New Orleans was actually the first place I visited in the United States. It was one of my first big jobs, a shoot for British 'Elle.' It was April 14, 1986.

Patrick Demarchelier was the one who got me my first 'Vogue' cover. It was French 'Vogue' - I think in '87 or '88. I think I was the first black model to be on the cover of French Vogue, which was shocking to me because when I asked them about it, they were like, 'Oh, no. We've never had that before.'

Feeling passionate about something doesn't mean you have to be angry.

I'm not set on a pedestal where I think I'm too high and mighty.

I would ask my mother to show me how to walk - and she did show me. That's why I think it's funny when people say, 'Did so-and-so teach you how to walk?' And I always say, 'You must be talking about my mother, because it was my mother who taught me how to walk.'

I don't think I was born beautiful. I just think I was born me.

Yes, I did and a lot of my friends who are in the same program as I were very much supportive, and the most important thing they said to me is do not let this interfere with what you have to do in taking car of yourself. That was the most important thing.

Children are our future we must take care of them with maximum effort.

You see all races in music, and in dance and theatre, so why can't we see it in fashion?

I have no regrets. I've got my health.

I'm always trying to do the impossible to please people. It comes from not being secure in myself and not looking at the things within I have to fix. Sometimes you keep going because you don't want to face the truth.

I like to control everything, and you cannot control everything. You have to at some point say, 'I let go and I'm going to let the cards fall where they fall... For a control freak, it's hard.

I don't always wear underwear. When I'm in the heat, especially, I can't wear it. Like, if I'm wearing a flower dress, why do I have to wear underwear?

When I first got Yves Saint Laurent Couture, I didn't know how to take off a cape. I would ask Katoucha and Dalma - the real divas of the runway - 'Can you show me?' I've never been afraid to ask for help.

I've been offered jobs by companies that supported apartheid many times in the 25 years of my modeling career, but I have never taken one of them. I have to refuse that money, because I'm not going to work against my people. They've suffered enough.

I loved watching so many of the great designers I've worked with do what they do. That's why I'm still loyal to the designers that I've known since I was 16.

I live my life day by day, and that's how I continue to live it.

The chocolate and crisps come in at times. You have to allow the little things that make you happy. I'm not extreme about what I eat.

Everyone has a temper. A temper is an emotion.

My features are completely ethnic.

I've never made an excuse of not knowing my father, because I've had great people in my life.

I'm very observant and very instinctive. In life, you have to have the vulnerability to accept when you are to blame. And I do have that and I am open enough to say it.

It's a new challenge to see how people can change your look. I like words like transformation, reinvention, and chameleon. Because one word I don't like is predictable.