Dita Von Teese quotes:

Some days are just bad days, that's all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that's just the way it is!

As a little girl growing up in a small farming town in Michigan, my idols were women like Marlene Dietrich and Rita Hayworth.

I love glamour and artificial beauty. I love the idea of artifice and dressing up and makeup and hair.

I like styling girls that don't normally dress in vintage clothes and don't normally wear red lipstick; I like seeing those kind of girls restyled in a retro way.

I want to remind people of a different kind of glamour, a different look, and breaking the rules of fashion. I wanna break the rules.

I suppose women are attracted to the bad-boy image sometimes because it's fun to have an adventure. It's like eating junk food... it's fun at the time, but ultimately not the best choice.

I really enjoy watching people like Madonna, or Cher, or Barbra Streisand on the red carpet. I want to see people wearing exciting things that are different and to know that they're not just looking for the latest, most normal thing.

I really believe that beauty comes from health - sensible eating and exercise.

My beauty icons are women whose images are self-created.

I don't work with a stylist, I don't work with a glam squad to get me together for the red carpet, I really enjoy the time it takes to do it myself, to choose my clothes and do my own makeup and my own hair.

I prefer the competitive atmosphere of a classroom setting, like yoga or Pilates. That keeps me going. Although performing on stage is great exercise!

When I was a little girl, I watched all old movies. My mother liked old movies, and she loved shopping for antiques, so I was around old things all the time.

Red lips don't look good on blotchy, uneven skin.

I think as someone who collects beautiful things from the past, the thing that I miss the most about modernism and the things I lament about the past are everyday things that you would use were made more beautifully.

Physical beauty isn't so impressive to me.

Yes, but more than being a designer, I'm more of a stylist, because I don't sew and I don't sketch, but I'm good at putting things together, choosing things that are chic and glossing over the aesthetics of things.

The prosecutor uttered the party line that would distinguish revue from burlesque for the next thirty years. "The difference is movement. On Broadway, unadorned female figures are used to artistic advantage in tableaux. They do not move.

Corsetry is a body modification.

I think the beauty looks I most regret are those I was persuaded into.

Every one of my products - my lingerie, my perfume, and everything that I do beauty-related with regard to building my burlesque shows - is just me.

I have a lot of Burberry items at home, including one dress that I loved so much that I had my living room painted to match because the color was so flattering.

Thanks to my mother, people tell me I look younger than I am, especially without make-up. And I suppose my father had a part in making me more frugal with my money.

I don't feel I have an alter ego.

I advocate glamour. Every day. Every minute.

So I have the green smoothie every day for breakfast, and then sometimes even for lunch too, and then I have a normal dinner.

I'm a designer, producer and I am hands-on for every project I undertake. The creative side of what I do is really something I think people overlooked for a while.

I started dressing vintage when I was a teenager because I didn't have money for designer clothes.

I'm not always in a full face of make-up! That's actually one of the things I like about make-up - that you can strip it away and show your vulnerability.

I can't stand wearing the same clothes all day. It makes me insane. I like to dress for the afternoon and for dinner.

You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.

I like having my cellphone. I like the Internet. I like being different.

Me personally, I want to entertain people above all. When you look back at burlesque in history and the real golden age of burlesque, those entertainers were there to entertain, and there wasn't usually some big political message behind what they were doing.

When I started performing, there was no Internet; I didn't really have anything to copy. I kind of had to just make up what I thought burlesque was, based on photographs of Sally Rand or whatever.

People who follow all the rules and chase every trend tend to get forgotten - they look great, but they're not as memorable.

I feel empowered the fact that I can look the way that I do on stage and in photos - I can look that way any time I want. And I feel like it's important message to other women that they can do it, too.

When people say I look intimidating, it's hard for me to relate to. I hear that a lot. I don't know why.

I have been obsessed with seamed stockings my whole life, and I would collect vintage ones that were made in the '40s and '50s with the authentic styling of the keyhole, the welt, the reinforced toe and heels, French or Cuban heels, and hand-stitched seams.

Well, when I was fifteen years old I worked in a lingerie store and that's how I feel in love with vintage lingerie because I wanted to know the history of it.

I was really, really shy when I was a little girl.

I don't have long-standing regrets; they pass as I see how things are meant to be.

Don't underestimate the cosmetic power of sunglasses. It's worth spending a bit of money on a quality pair. I usually go for Dior or Louis Vuitton.

But I'm not the girl who changes into flats because my feet are tired at the end of the night. I go the distance. I go all the way.

I've always loved the idea of not being what people expect me to be.