Andre Leon Talley

It's incorrect to assume you can be a fashion editor because you blog, if you don't have experience to look at fashion in a professional way.

I always feel comfortable, basically in any situation except perhaps airports.

I think people look great in black. I love that what stands out is the person, especially. Black just conveys a kind of drama, even if it can be quiet drama. It does lend to the wearer a sense of confidence.

The happiest moments of my childhood were spent on my grandmother's front porch in Durham, N.C., or at her sister's farmhouse in Orange County, where chickens paraded outside the kitchen's screen door and hams were cured in the smokehouse.

I think it's important that models be healthy.

I watch Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews. That's what I watch every night. By the time I've watched them, I don't have time to watch reality TV shows.

Fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez was a major part of my early career.

In my day you didn't speak until spoken to.

'Drekitude' is the lowest point in the lowest ebb. It could be your look. It could be your shoes. It could be that you're standing wrong. 'Drek' is a total, total, total hot mess.

If you're going to be a model, what's going to get you the job on a go-see and makes you stand out, it might not be your lipstick or your portfolio or what you're wearing, it might come from your core being.

I only take risks in couture, but I don't take risks in athleticism.

I suppose the most daring thing I've ever done is try to water ski. And that was not successful.

I love sitting through long things. I mean, 'Gone With the Wind' I will sit through; I love sitting somewhere for four hours, for anything. I love being on a train. I love sitting down for four hours. I think it's the most wonderful thing to be able to sit somewhere and concentrate on something for more than two hours.

Why spend money on movies when you can spend it on gas? Or dry cleaning? Or groceries?

I'm not going to go to the local theater to spend $12... when I can get a screening copy of a film. I don't get screeners myself, but I can borrow from my friends or go to their house to watch.

I only watch MSNBC for the news.

What's that show? 'TMZ'? They stand there and say, 'I've got this on this person.' The focus on celebrities can be detrimental because people could be thinking of other things, but it's a part of the culture and it's what sells.

The zenith of elegance in any woman's wardrobe is the little black dress, the power of which suggests dash and refinement.

I'm usually at home and in bed by 10 o'clock. I do not want to be out at anybody's New Year's Eve party.

I just need green. I need to wake up and see grass and squirrels. I don't want to see skyscrapers.