There are only a handful of designers that influence other designers, and I have to keep one step ahead of the game.

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.

The instrument through which time is converted is called work.

Listen to the child in you and follow its innocence

If I knew where poems came from, I'd go there.

Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it.

If I can't have your babies, I'll damn sure deliver them!

I'm always shy in front of an audience, so I'm always at the back, in the shadows, just doing it. I don't like the front, the adulation.

No more excuses. I can't blame anything on my parents. I'm responsible for my mistakes and my choices.

I dislike being an anvil for the hammering out of other people's virtues.

When there is a huge force pressing down on freedoms, sub-cultures with more creativity and power are likely to form.

Being in the depths of sadness is just as important an experience as being exuberantly happy.