Top 100 Diana Vreeland Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You’re not supposed to give people what they want, you’re supposed to give them what they don’t know that they want yet.”

— Diana Vreeland

2. “There’s only one very good life and that’s the life you know you want and you make it yourself.”

— Diana Vreeland

3. “Too much good taste can be very boring. Independent style, on the other hand, can be very inspiring.”

— Diana Vreeland

4. “Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes.”

— Diana Vreeland

5. “The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.”

— Diana Vreeland

6. “People who eat white bread have no dreams.”

— Diana Vreeland

7. “The best time to leave a party is when the party’s just beginning. There’s no drink that kills except the drink that you didn’t want to take, as the saying goes, and there’s no hour that kills except the hour you stayed after you wanted to go home.”

— Diana Vreeland

8. “Don’t look left nor right and never compete. Never. Watching the other guy is what kills all forms of energy.”

— Diana Vreeland

9. “To be contented – that’s for the cows.”

— Diana Vreeland

10. “Without emotion there is no beauty.”

— Diana Vreeland

11. “I think when you’re young you should be a lot with yourself and your sufferings. Then one day you get out where the sun shines and the rain rains and the snow snows and it all comes together.”

— Diana Vreeland

12. “Balenciaga often said that women did not have to be perfect or beautiful to wear his clothes. When they wore his clothes, they became beautiful.”

— Diana Vreeland

13. “Every girl in the world should have geisha training.”

— Diana Vreeland

14. “When I arrived in America, I had these very dark red nails which some people objected to, but then some people object to absolutely everything.”

— Diana Vreeland

15. “If it isn’t a passion, it isn’t burning, it isn’t on fire, you haven’t lived.”

— Diana Vreeland

16. “The body must stay fit. Fit people like themselves much better.”

— Diana Vreeland

17. “I always wear my sweater back-to-front; it is so much more flattering.”

— Diana Vreeland

18. “You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It’s a way of life. Without it, you’re nobody.”

— Diana Vreeland

19. “I’ve never met a leopard print I didn’t like.”

— Diana Vreeland

20. “Don’t look back. Just go ahead. Give ideas away. Under every idea there’s a new idea waiting to be born.”

— Diana Vreeland

21. “Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world.”

— Diana Vreeland

22. “God was fair to the Japanese. He gave them no oil, no diamonds. He gave them style.”

— Diana Vreeland

23. “Never fear being vulgar, just boring, middle class or dull.”

— Diana Vreeland

24. “Being vulgar is fine, but oh please just don’t be boring.”

— Diana Vreeland

25. “Pink is the navy blue of India.”

— Diana Vreeland

26. “Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female’”

— Diana Vreeland

27. “Unshined shoes are the end of civilization.”

— Diana Vreeland

28. “Truth is a hell of a big point with me. Now I exaggerate – always.”

— Diana Vreeland

29. “You know the greatest thing is passion, without it what have you got? I mean if you love someone you can love them as much as you can love them but if it isn’t a passion, it isn’t burning, it isn’t on fire, you haven’t lived.”

— Diana Vreeland

30. “I mean, a new dress doesn’t get you anywhere; it’s the life you’re living in the dress.”

— Diana Vreeland

31. “I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.”

— Diana Vreeland

32. “Lighting is everything in a color.”

— Diana Vreeland

33. “Oh, but I think that thoughtfulness and manners are everything.”

— Diana Vreeland

34. “We all need a splash of bad taste. No taste is what I am against.”

— Diana Vreeland

35. “Fragrances fill the senses with the mysterious.”

— Diana Vreeland

36. “I sincerely believe that energy grows from itself and the more energy you expand the more you create within yourself.”

— Diana Vreeland

37. “I like to indulge myself by sitting up late without having to do anything in the morning.”

— Diana Vreeland

38. “There’s only one thing in life, and that’s the continual renewal of inspiration.”

— Diana Vreeland

39. “Too much good taste can be boring.”

— Diana Vreeland

40. “You don’t have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive.”

— Diana Vreeland

41. “Poor, darling fellow – he died of food. He was killed by the dinner table.”

— Diana Vreeland

42. “The two greatest mannequins of the century were Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell – unquestionably. You just couldn’t take a bad picture of those two old girls.”

— Diana Vreeland

43. “Still, my dream in life is to come home and think of absolutely nothing. After all, you can’t think all the time.”

— Diana Vreeland

44. “Balenciaga did the most delicious evening clothes. Clothes aren’t delicious any more.”

— Diana Vreeland

45. “The only thing people are interested in is people.”

— Diana Vreeland

46. “My life has been more influenced by books than by any other one thing.”

— Diana Vreeland

47. “Parents, you know, can be terrible.”

— Diana Vreeland

48. “Where Chanel came from in France is anyone’s guess. She said one thing one day and another thing the next. She was a peasant – and a genius. Peasants and geniuses are the only people who count and she was both.”

— Diana Vreeland

49. “A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste-it’s hearty, it’s healthy, it’s physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I’m against.”

— Diana Vreeland

50. “Black is the hardest color in the world to get right-except for gray...”

— Diana Vreeland