Chanel Quotes

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.

A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course

Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.

It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice.

Fashion changes, but style endures.

In order to be irreplaceacle, one must always be different.

You live but once; you might as well be amusing.

Success is most often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.

Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.

I don't care what you think about me. I don't think about you at all.

If you were born without wings, do nothing to prevent them from growing.

You can be gorgeous at thirty, charmimg at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life.

My life didn't please me, so I created my life.

A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future.

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.

A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.

Where should one use perfume?" a young woman asked. "Wherever one wants to be kissed.

There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.

I don't do fashion, I AM fashion.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.

The best colour in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.

My pain was never more valuable than his potential.

Elegance is refusal.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

I don't understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that's the day she has a date with destiny. And it's best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!

I wanted to give a woman comfortable clothes that would flow with her body. A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.

A woman can be over dressed but never over elegant.

Men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

Everyone marries the Duke of Westminster. There are a lot of duchesses, but only one Coco Chanel.

A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul

One is never over-dressed or underdressed with a Little Black Dress.

Only those with no memory insist on their originality.

I’m very much down to earth, just not this earth.

Fashion has two purposes: comfort and love. Beauty comes when fashion succeeds.

Arrogance is in everything I do. It is in my gestures, the harshness of my voice, in the glow of my gaze, in my sinewy, tormented face.

The best things in life are free. The second best things are very, very expensive.

In fact I need you to know it was all true. The friendly guy who helps you move and assists senior citizens in the pool is the same guy who assaulted me. One person can be capable of both. Society often fails to wrap its head around the fact that these truths often coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. Bad qualities can hide inside a good person. That's the terrifying part.

A beautiful dress may look beautiful on a hanger, but that means nothing. It must be seen on the shoulders, with the movement of the arms, the legs, and the waist.

I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.

Passion goes, Boredom remains.

My advice is, if he’s worried about his reputation, don’t rape anyone.

They seemed angry that I’d made myself vulnerable, more than the fact that he’d acted on my vulnerability.

Fashion is a language that creates itself in clothes to interpret reality.

When a woman is assaulted, one of the first questions people ask is, Did you say no? This question assumes that the answer was always yes, and that it is her job to revoke the agreement. To defuse the bomb she was given. But why are they allowed to touch us until we physically fight them off? Why is the door open until we have to slam it shut?

The judge had given Brock something that would never be extended to me: empathy. My pain was never more valuable than his potential.

Most of us understand that your future is not promised to you. It is constructed day by day, through the choices you make. Your future is earned, little by little, through hard work and action. If you don’t act accordingly, that dream dissolves.

This book does not have a happy ending. The happy part is there is no ending, because I'll always find a way to keep going.

I am a victim, I have no qualms with this word, only with the idea that it is all that I am.

There are people who have money and people who are rich.

Most people say developing is linear, but for survivors it is cyclic. People grow up, victims grow around; we strengthen around the place that hurt, become older and fuller, but the vulnerable core is never gone.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

Elegance comes from being as beautiful inside as outside.

We don’t fight for our own happy endings. We fight to say you can’t. We fight for accountability. We fight to establish precedent. We fight because we pray we’ll be the last ones to feel this kind of pain.

I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm. Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.

Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.

Sin can be forgiven, but stupid is forever.

I want everyone to wear what they want and mix it in their own way. That, to me, is what is modern.

When I listened to her, I understood: You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do. I had to believe her, because she was living proof. Then she said, Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.

There is a time for work, and a time for love. That leaves no other time.

Little girls don’t stay little forever, Kyle Stephens said. They turn into strong women who return to destroy your world.

Be classy. Anything but trashy.

The secret to modeling is not being perfect. What one needs is a face that people can identify in a second. You have to be given what’s needed by nature, and what’s needed is to bring something new.

I imposed black; it still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.

But living is an incredible thing, just to have been here, to have felt, if only briefly, the volume and depth of others' empathy. I wrote, most of all, to tell you I have seen how good the world can be.

Women have always been the strong ones of the world.

Fashion does not have to prove that it is serious. It is the proof that intelligent frivolity can be something creative and positive

You are allowed to be cautious but you don’t always have to be afraid.

I did not come into existence when he harmed me. She found her voice! I had a voice, he stripped it, left me groping around blind for a bit, but I always had it. I just used it like I never had to use it before. I do not owe him my success, becoming, he did not create me. The only credit Brock can take is for assaulting me, and he could never even admit to that.

Like poetry, fashion does not state anything. It merely suggests

We force her to think hard about what this will mean for his life, even though he never considered what his actions would do to her.

Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.

Fashion is made to become unfashionable.

There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly. Fashion is at once a captapillar and a butterfly, caterpillar by day, butterfly by night

There is nothing worse than solitude. Solitude can help a man realize himself; but it destroys a woman

In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and even clothes, the discussion of fur is childish.

Coquetry, it's a triumph of the spirit over the senses.

I love luxury. And luxury lies not in richness and ornateness but in the absence of vulgarity. Vulgarity is the ugliest word in our language. I stay in the game to fight it.

What we needed to raise in others was this instinct. The ability to recognize, in an instant, right from wrong. The clarity of mind to face it rather than ignore it. I learned that before they had chased Brock, they had checked on me. Masculinity is often defined by physicality, but that initial kneeling is as powerful as the leg sweep, the tackling. Masculinity is found in the vulnerability, the crying.

You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do.

Buy what you don’t have yet, or what you really want, which can be mixed with what you already own. Buy only because something excites you, not just for the simple act of shopping.

What was unique about this crime, was that the perpetrator could suggest the victim experienced pleasure and people wouldn't bat an eye. There's no such thing as a good stabbing or bad stabbing, consensual murder or nonconsensual murder.

Elegance does not consist in putting on a new dress.

I used to shrink at harsh tones, used to be afraid. Until I learned it takes nothing to be hostile. Nothing. It is easy to be the one yelling, chucking words that burn like coals, neon red, meant to harm. I have learned I am water. The coals sizzle, extinguishing when they reach me. I see how, those fiery coals are just black stones, sinking to the bottom.

Stuff your brain with knowledge.

A woman has the age she deserves.

And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you.

I didn’t know that money could make the cell doors swing open. I didn’t know that if a woman was drunk when the violence occurred, she wouldn’t be taken seriously. I didn’t know that if he was drunk when the violence occurred, people would offer him sympathy. I didn’t know that my loss of memory would become his opportunity. I didn’t know that being a victim was synonymous with not being believed.

I always wondered why survivors understood other survivors so well. Why, even if the details of our attacks vary, survivors can lock eyes and get it without having to explain. Perhaps it is not the particulars of the assault itself that we have in common, but the moment after; the first time you are left alone. Something slipping out of you. Where did I go. What was taken. It is terror swallowed inside silence. An unclipping from the world where up was up and down was down.

Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else's.

I encourage you to sit in that garden, but when you do, close your eyes and I'll tell you about the real garden, the sacred place. Ninety feet away from where you sit there is a spot, where Brock's knees hit the dirt, where the Swedes tackled him to the ground, yelling 'What the fuck are you doing? Do you think this is okay?'. Put their words on a plaque. Mark that spot, because in my mind I've erected a monument. The place to be remembered is not where I was assaulted, but where he fell, where I was saved, where two men declared stop, no more, not here, not now, not ever.

They tell you that if you're assaulted, there's a kingdom, a courthouse, high up on a mountain where justice can be found. Most victims are turned away at the base of the mountain, told they don't have enough evidence to make the journey. Some victims sacrifice everything to make the climb, but are slain along the way, the burden of proof impossibly high. I set off, accompanied by a strong team, who helped carry the weight, until I made it, the summit, the place few victims reached, the promised land. We'd gotten an arrest, a guilty verdict, the small percentage that gets a conviction. It was time to see what justice looked like. We threw open the doors, and there was nothing. It took the breath out of me. Even worse was looking back down to the bottom of the mountain, where I imagined expectant victims looking up, waving cheering, expectantly. What do you see? What does it feel like? What happens when you arrive? What could I tell them? A system does not exist for you. The pain of this process couldn't be worth it. These crimes are not crimes but inconveniences. You can fight and fight and for what? When you are assaulted, run and never look back. This was not one bad sentence. This was the best we could hope for.