Diana Vreeland Quotes & Sayings

I went to work to make money, not because I was bored. It was money that I wanted. — Diana Vreeland

You know the greatest thing is passion, without it what have you got? I mean if you love someone you can love them as much as you can love them but if it isn't a passion, it isn't burning, it isn't on fire, you haven't lived. — Diana Vreeland

A funny person is funny only for so long, but a wit can sit down and go on being spellbinding forever. One is not meant to laugh. One stays quiet and marvels. Spontaneously witty talk is without question the most fascinating entertainment there is. — Diana Vreeland

Allure is a word very few people use nowadays, but it's something that exists. Allure holds you, doesn't it? Whether it's a gaze or a glance in the street or a face in the crowd or someone sitting opposite you at lunch ... you are held — Diana Vreeland

You don't have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive. — Diana Vreeland

I certainly didn't learn anything in school. My education was the world. — Diana Vreeland

I've always had such wonderful opportunities, but I never made the effort, haven't put on the pressure. But I never took them. — Diana Vreeland

Photographers aren't artists, for goodness sake. — Diana Vreeland

It's not about the dress you wear, but it's about the life you lead in the dress. — Diana Vreeland

Still, my dream in life is to come home and think of absolutely nothing. After all, you can't think all the time. — Diana Vreeland

When I arrived in America, I had these very dark red nails which some people objected to, but then some people object to absolutely everything. — Diana Vreeland

I think allure is something around you, like a perfume or like a scent. It's like a memory ... it pervades. — Diana Vreeland

Within every girl is the possibility of arousing emotion. Without emotion there is no beauty. — Diana Vreeland

Poor, darling fellow - he died of food. He was killed by the dinner table. — Diana Vreeland

One thing I hold against Americans is that they have no flair for the rain. They seem unsettled by it; it's against them: they take it as an assault, an inconvenience! But rain is so wonderfully cleansing, so refreshing, so calming ... — Diana Vreeland

Maintainence is elegance. Diana Vreeland. vogue magazine 1984. — Diana Vreeland

I'm terrible on facts. But I always have an idea. If you have an idea, you're well ahead — Diana Vreeland

All creations demand greenery of spirt. — Diana Vreeland

I have always felt that the only great thing about an interview is the questions that are asked. — Diana Vreeland

Never worry about the facts. Just project an image to the public. — Diana Vreeland

No one cuts backs like he did. No one knows what a back is anymore. — Diana Vreeland

I think we live only through our dreams and our imagination. — Diana Vreeland

What do I think about the way most people dress? Most people are not something one thinks about. — Diana Vreeland

Never fear being vulgar, just boring, middle class or dull. — Diana Vreeland

I'm for everybody. There are no set rules. But if one's not a joiner. To hell with all of them! — Diana Vreeland

How boring to copy the past
with all the magnificence of today and tomorrow. — Diana Vreeland

I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress. — Diana Vreeland

I think laying out a beautiful picture in a beautiful way is a bloody bore. I think you've got to blow it right across the page and down the side, crop it, cut it in half, combine it with something else ... do something with it. You've got to make something out of it. — Diana Vreeland

I don't think anybody has been in a better place at a better time than I was when I was editor of Vogue. Vogue always did stand for people's lives. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere: it's the life you're living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later. Like all great times, the sixties were about personalities. It was the first time when mannequins became personalities. It was a time of great goals, an inventive time and these girls invented themselves. Naturally, as an editor I was there to help them along. — Diana Vreeland

Don't look left nor right and never compete. Never. Watching the other guy is what kills all forms of energy. — Diana Vreeland

Why don't you have a room done up in every color green? This will take months, years, to collect, but it will be delightful-a melange of plants, green glass, green porcelains, and furniture covered in sad greens, gay greens, clear, faded, and poison greens? — Diana Vreeland

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity. — Diana Vreeland

I was always sort of a loner, I suppose. I always had to think out everything for myself ... I suppose that is what you call a loner. — Diana Vreeland

I'm a person who is only invested in the pleasures and enjoyments of life. All the rest is left to the men. I've always remained what you might call "feminine" about the whole [work] thing. — Diana Vreeland

Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world. — Diana Vreeland

When fashion turns over it brings in little tiny creaks and cracks. This is the fascination and that is where you have to watch every step. — Diana Vreeland

I adore that pink, it is the navy blue of India! — Diana Vreeland

To be contented - that's for the cows. — Diana Vreeland

Power has got to be the most intoxicating thing in the world - and of all forms of power the most intoxicating is fame. — Diana Vreeland

Balenciaga often said that women did not have to be perfect or beautiful to wear his clothes. When they wore his clothes, they became beautiful. — Diana Vreeland

I never felt comfortable about my looks until I married Reed Vreeland. I believe in love at first sight because that's what it was. I knew the moment our eyes met that we would marry, — Diana Vreeland

People who eat white bread have no dreams. — Diana Vreeland

Black is the hardest color in the world to get right-except for gray ... — Diana Vreeland

Beauty is in all beings that love and are loved, animals and children, and if older women have it, it is because they feel completely free in this world and in their lives as they feel close to God ... and they are spiritually in tune with the universe. December 6 1968. Letter to Miss Anita Colby, 3 East 78th Street, New York — Diana Vreeland

Without emotion there is no beauty — Diana Vreeland

A lie to get out of something, or take an advantage for oneself, that's one thing; but a lie to make life more interesting - well, that's entirely different. — Diana Vreeland

There's only one very good life and that's the life you know you want and you make it yourself. — Diana Vreeland

This world without a leopard ... I mean, who would want to be here?! — Diana Vreeland

Balenciaga did the most delicious evening clothes. Clothes aren't delicious any more. — Diana Vreeland

The best thing about London is Paris, — Diana Vreeland

No one had a better sense of luxury than Coco Chanel, She really had the spirit of the 20th Century. — Diana Vreeland

We are not looking for endless variety
we are looking for fashion. — Diana Vreeland

Unshined shoes are the end of civilization. — Diana Vreeland

I think when you're young you should be a lot with yourself and your sufferings. Then one day you get out where the sun shines and the rain rains and the snow snows and it all comes together. — Diana Vreeland

Blue jeans are the most beautiful things since the gondola. — Diana Vreeland

Fragrances fill the senses with the mysterious. — Diana Vreeland

Naturally, I've always been mad about clothes. You don't get born in Paris to forget about clothes for a minute. — Diana Vreeland

The personality is a work of art. — Diana Vreeland

If you had a bump on your nose, it made no difference so long as you had a marvelous body & good carriage. You held your head high, & you were a beauty You knew how to water-ski, & how to take a jet plane fast in the morning, arrive anywhere, & be anyone when you got off. — Diana Vreeland

A good photograph was never what I was looking for. I like to have a point. I had to have a point or I didn't have a picture. This is what I've always found so fascinating about paparazzi pictures. They catch something unintended, on the wing ... they get that thing. It's the revelation of personality. — Diana Vreeland

It's only intelligent to wish to look after yourself properly. — Diana Vreeland

Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal. — Diana Vreeland

A world without leopards, well, who would want to live in it? — Diana Vreeland

Water is God's tranquilizer, — Diana Vreeland

This is a weakness of the world. Someone thinks they've discovered something for the first time. They want to be authoritative about it. — Diana Vreeland

You're not supposed to give people what they want, you're supposed to give them what they don't know that they want yet. — Diana Vreeland

The body must stay fit. Fit people like themselves much better. — Diana Vreeland

We all need a splash of bad taste. No taste is what I am against. — Diana Vreeland

Too much good taste can be boring — Diana Vreeland

Parents, you know, can be terrible. — Diana Vreeland

I think your imagination is your reality — Diana Vreeland

The two greatest mannequins of the century were Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell - unquestionably. You just couldn't take a bad picture of those two old girls — Diana Vreeland

I like to indulge myself by sitting up late without having to do anything in the morning. — Diana Vreeland

I have a terrible time remembering exactly when my birthday is. Age is totally boring ... — Diana Vreeland

The future holds a golden world. It will be for beauty; it will be for intelligent productiveness. — Diana Vreeland

You can see and feel everything in clothes. — Diana Vreeland

Too much good taste can be very boring. Independent style, on the other hand, can be very inspiring. — Diana Vreeland

Money has nothing to do with style at all, but naturally it helps every situation. — Diana Vreeland

Lighting is everything in a color. — Diana Vreeland

Where Chanel came from in France is anyone's guess. She said one thing one day and another thing the next. She was a peasant - and a genius. Peasants and geniuses are the only people who count and she was both. — Diana Vreeland

I wonder about prisoners. They're told, "You are free, you are innocent, you can go anywhere." I'm sure they usually feel nothing. They don't burst into tears or hysterics or joy or "I told you so." It's nothing. To be on the straight path isn't a bloody thing. It's just ordinary. — Diana Vreeland

I sincerely believe that energy grows from itself and the more energy you expand the more you create within yourself. — Diana Vreeland

Don't look back. Just go ahead. Give ideas away. Under every idea there's a new idea waiting to be born. — Diana Vreeland

This is a great shame, but of course there have to be some things in life that not everybody can have, and great perfume is one of them. — Diana Vreeland

You've got to have style, it helps you get out of bed in the morning. — Diana Vreeland

I read everything! I would have read the phone book if you put it in front of me. I just read. — Diana Vreeland

If you think all the time every day of your life, you might as well kill yourself today and be happier tomorrow. — Diana Vreeland

The best time to leave a party is when the party's just beginning. There's no drink that kills except the drink that you didn't want to take, as the saying goes, and there's no hour that kills except the hour you stayed after you wanted to go home. — Diana Vreeland

Where would fashion be without literature? — Diana Vreeland

Pleasure is everything. — Diana Vreeland

I adore artifice. I always have. — Diana Vreeland

Balenciaga was incredibleI was madly infatuated with his clothes. His clothes were devastating. One fainted. One simply blew up and died. — Diana Vreeland

God was fair to the Japanese. He gave them no oil, no diamonds. He gave them style. — Diana Vreeland

Don't you loathe the word "workaholic"? It has nothing to do with an important thing, that you and your secretary are at the office until 6:30. But that's life, kiddo. 24-hour work doesn't go on in America. 24-hour work is what Italy and Holland did after the war. The lights never went out! — Diana Vreeland

Red is the great clarifier - bright and revealing. I can't imagine becoming bored with red - it would be like becoming bored with the person you love. — Diana Vreeland

I wasn't a fashion editor. I was the one and only fashion editor. — Diana Vreeland

A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste-it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against. — Diana Vreeland

Pink is the navy blue of India. — Diana Vreeland

Oh, but I think that thoughtfulness and manners are everything. — Diana Vreeland

I always wear my sweater back-to-front; it is so much more flattering. — Diana Vreeland