Food Interviews

“To have those magical moments, the ones that require real trust or bravery or letting go, you’ve really gotta swing for the rafters! You’ve got to try and hit it out the park — although you might miss. You’re always trying to hit it into the rafters, and damn the consequences if you don’t make it.”

“The success of translating an idea into action is very often where the talent is to be found. If you can give a body to the idea, I think you are onto a very interesting process.”

“The entire aim of my work is to elevate the human spirit.”

“When you are in a very, very tough moment of a day and have a lot of frustration because nothing is happening right—but you don’t give up—and suddenly that happens! That’s almost a transcendental thing.”

“Somehow at the end of the day doing something that actually resonates with people is quite rewarding and keeps me going.”

“I don’t pander to anybody. I don’t care who it is. I just do the picture I do.”

“I think that one should make a house that really fits you like your second soul. It should be your most preferred place on earth!”

“If I want to make a movie and I can at 62, I will. But I want to leave the ring triumphant. I want this guy, this guy you see right now, I want him to be the guy who makes the movies, not the autumn dude.”

“I think we've all lived through the pandemic and it has awakened in all of us a concept of time, and how fleeting our time is and can be... I want to apply my energy doing good and creating and hopefully not squandering that. That's what I live for.”

“To fight this game alone is actually every day a struggle. Sometimes you are not in the best shape. The biggest thing is that you must find in it a personal happiness.”

“From the beginning, I wanted to protect the clothes themselves from fashion, and at the same time protect the woman’s body. I wanted people to keep on wearing my clothes for at least 10 years or more.”

“I always want to take a human portrait. My goal in life is always to enter into everything with great care and with great humanity.”

“It’s still astounding to me that I have one Oscar, let alone two. Especially because it’s by-product of something that you love so much, it feels like that’s already the gift, that’s already the award.”

“I have a responsibility that lasts a lifetime with my children. They know that I love my work, and they know how I go about it. And I hope that they find work that they love, because nothing can compare to watching your child succeed.”

“Once I commit to an idea, then I just move forward with it, no matter what. And that's always how I've operated when it comes to my art. I'm kind of tenacious in that way, even if it takes a lifetime, eventually I will make that thing.”

“I take everything as seriously as the next thing. I don't differentiate or have a level of commitment based on the kind of project that it is. I believe that there's an equal measure in one role versus another role.”

“I try to look at things more from the perspective that everything is happening for us, not to us. And so whatever challenges that were occurring at the time, perhaps they were happening just so this moment could happen.”

“Most people make art and movies as a job and if a lot of people go to see it they make money and that is their sign of success. I am not making judgment here, but their goal is strictly business-oriented. I don't do this as a business.”

“When I was younger I used to have more anxiousness to obtain things. But there are moments in which you obtain those things and then you relax.”

“If it sounds right, then I’m happy, no matter how I got there. I just want to make beautiful music.”

“There’s only one of you in the world. No one else is like you and that's a superpower.”

“For me, success is having integrity and really staying true to my own voice. When I was younger, maybe it was more about the big spaces and getting awards. But now I’m prioritizing more this idea of having a beautiful process.”

“I feel quite free as an artist. I don't feel that I have to prove anything. It’s a liberating feeling. I can go in any directions, I can explore and embrace whatever I want.”

“I believe anyway that the prime-time for every work of art exists in the time in which it was done. After that it’s transformation, continuous transformation.”

“I don’t want to continue to do what I did when I was 20. I would like to continue to develop myself .”

“I would like to think that someday I will be content enough with myself and feel good enough about myself to think I don’t need to do all that sort of shit and I’ll just go and watch tomatoes grow or something.”

“It's important for a novelist to use the imagination like a musician, a composer or a painter would, in a kind of non-logical way. I think it’s very important for me to not just become a kind of intellectual writer.”

“I started a very nice career, became quite successful, and at age 40 I won this prize. But when I got that prize, I realized that I hadn’t yet found my own language of cooking. So I got on my knees and gathered all the tools from my childhood and started working very hard on that. And that’s how it started.”

“I’ve learned that with time also comes pleasure: the pleasure of creating but also upholding the legacy that’s been passed down to me.”

“If I pass away one day, I am happy because I tried to do my best. My sport allowed me to do so much.”

“I hope the scale of my works is way bigger than what you see. I hope they live in you.”

“It’s everything you need, but nothing extra. It’s what's essential. It’s a minimum state which you achieve when you can't add or subtract… It’s sort of this perfect state, that’s what I'm looking for.”

“We have such a short time on this earth, and when you give that opportunity to somebody younger, and they pass it on to the next generation… That’s real success.”

“I struggled a lot. That was the reason I became a champion. A lot of people give up, a lot of people feel sorry for themselves. But I didn't.”

“I remember driving in New York in 1976 and I put the brakes on quickly because there was the very, very first Vogue cover that I ever shot. Big, on a bus shelter! And I remember just pulling over and just staring at it. At that point it was a real dream to see one of your pictures there. I’d always dreamed of doing a Vogue cover!”

“Art is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it.”

“The journey is everything! It’s a cliché, but I have really felt it in my own life, in the 25 or 30 years I’ve been in this… The goal is the process, really enjoying the process.”

“It’s the rollercoaster ride of doing something creative: when it goes well and you enjoy the process then it’s a high and you just want to keep on doing it.”

“I think all the roles of my career have presented me with opportunities for my own personal growth. Roles that really push you out of your comfort zone, it really helps you to grow, and it then brings you greater capacity for love within yourself and love for others.”

“I am not that interested at the moment to work for the sake of others, I’m not interested in doing commissions. I'm way more interested in creating art for art's sake and in order to do that I have to believe in myself.”