Karl Lagerfeld In His Own Words

On plastic surgery: 'Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young. The worst are the lip operations. They look like they flew through the windscreen during a car accident and were patched up badly afterwards.'

On never being satisfied: 'I'm a kind of fashion nymphomaniac who never gets an orgasm.'

On his cat Choupette: 'She is a famous beauty. Baptiste Giabiconi (pictured) gave her to me for Christmas to watch for two weeks when he was away, but then I refused to give her back. I thought she was too cute. She is like a kept woman. She has a strong personality. She has lunch and dinner with me on the table, with her own food. She doesn't touch my food. She doesn't want to eat on the floor. She sleeps under a pillow and she even knows how to use an iPad. She has two personal maids, for both night and day. She is beyond spoiled.'

On Andy Warhol: 'I shouldn't say this, but physically he was quite repulsive.'

On Pippa Middleton: 'Kate Middleton has a nice silhouette and she is the right girl for that boy. I like that kind of woman, I like romantic beauties. On the other hand, her sister struggles. I don't like the sister's face. She should only show her back.'

On women who hate models: 'They are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly.'

On fur: 'It is farmers who are nice to the cows and the pigs and then kill them. It's even more hypocritical than hunters. At least the hunters don't flatter the animals....I don't like that people butcher animals, but I don't like them to butcher humans either, which is apparently very popular in the world.'

On children: 'They grow so fast, and having adult children makes you look 100 years old. I don't want that.'

On sweatpants: 'Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.'

On beauty: 'Life is not a beauty contest, some [ugly people] are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people... the worst is ugly, short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life... they are mean and they want to kill you.'

On Heidi Klum: 'I don't know Heidi Klum. She was never known in France. Claudia Schiffer also doesn't know who she is.'

On technology: ''The iPod is genius. I have 300.'

On his legendary status: 'I've always known that I was made to live this way, that I would be this sort of legend.'

On his career: 'My professional life is about forgetting. I make big efforts to forget. Not because I wasn't happy but because I have to find something else. I cannot stop at what I did.'

On the use colour in fashion: 'Black, like white, is the best colour. They both look great with added colour touches like red.'

On his journey: 'My fortune teller, when I was young, told me: "For you, it will start when it stops for the others". That is true.'

On being superficial: 'I think I am a much more superficial person than you imagine.'

On selfies: 'I don't do selfies. But other people do, and they all want to do selfies with me. No, no, no. Thank God, Sébastien, my assistant, he's mean to the people in the street, mean and rude. I'm a nice person.'

On being an 'artist' : 'I'm a designer, I do photos, I do books, I'm a publisher, but I don't have the self-proclaimed label "artist." I hate that. Very pretentious. If other people say it, it's very flattering, but if you start to say it yourself, you better forget about it.'

On wedding collections: 'Normally, I don't recommend me for wedding dresses - they all get a divorce.'

On Coco Chanel: 'What I've done, Coco Chanel would never have done. She would have hated it.' - The World According to Karl, 2013.