The reason I'm patriotic about Scotland is because I think it's been dealt a really hard hand. It's marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.

You've got to know the rules to break them. That's what I'm here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.

The world needs fantasy, not reality. We have enough reality today

Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.

There is no better designer than nature

People don't want to see clothes, they want to see something that fuels the imagination.

I think there is beauty in everything. What 'normal' people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it.

If you're lucky enough to use something you see in a dream, it is purely original. It's not in the world - it's in your head. I think that is amazing.

There comes a time in your life when you focus solely on what you believe is right, regardless of what everybody else is doing.

For me, what I do is an artistic expression which is channeled through me. Fashion is just the medium.

When I'm dead and gone, people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen.

Love just feels like the truth

When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.

A good lawyer knows how to shut up when he's won his case.

The more difficult a problem becomes, the more interesting it is.

Why do we love love when love seems to hate us?

Maybe it was for the best that she'd been so foolish, for if she'd known how hard this would be, perhaps she wouldn't have done it.

Without a doubt in sketch comedy there are fewer women than men.

Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.

I played a heap of snow in a school play. I was under a sheet, and crawled out when spring came. I often say I'll never reach the same artistic level again.

Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.