Kevyn Aucoin

Beauty has a lot to do with character.

I'd rather have huge success and huge failures than travel in the middle of the road.

Today I see beauty everywhere I go, in every face I see, in every single soul.

There are no rules when it comes to makeup!

I was absolutely lost in love and life when I did my drawings. Time stood still.

While traveling around the world, I've had the opportunity to work with every living beauty icon. I've learned to appreciate idiosyncrasy. The fact is, there is really no such thing as 'normal' - everybody's different, and that is the essence of their beauty.

Perfection is boring. If a face doesn't have mistakes, it's nothing.

I'm going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can't do film. I'm not talking about actresses; I'm talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so... it's sinful, it really is.

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.

It's our hearts and brains that we should exercise more often. You can put on all the makeup you want, but it won't make your soul pretty.

Soon I realized that if beauty equalled forgiveness, I was never going to be forgiven.

I'm very passionate about what I do.

There are two types of people in the world: people who are passionate about things, and people who've had their passion punched, beaten, or whatever out of them.

I also have this incredible love for women.

Perfection is boring. If a face doesnt have mistakes its nothing.

When I was growing up, the men in my life were abusive; women were the ones I ran to for comfort.

Fear is the most debilitating emotion in the world, and it can keep you from ever truly knowing yourself and others - its adverse effects can no longer be overlooked or underestimated. Fear breeds hatred, and hatred has the power to destroy everything in its path.

I spent much of my life hiding.

Beauty is about perception, not about make-up. I think the beginning of all beauty is knowing and liking oneself. You can't put on make-up, or dress yourself, or do you hair with any sort of fun or joy if you're doing it from a position of correction.

Life is too short to spend hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade will mask an ugly heart.

That's why I began doing makeup in the first place: I was hoping that through helping people see the beauty in themselves, I could try and find it in me.

Yes, but everyone is beautiful to someone.

I don't use 'always do this,' 'never say that' and I never give advice because I'm not the end-all, be-all authority.

Fights with my father were really quite brutal. I would not live his vision. I would not become who he wanted me to be. Everything I did was criticized. I would spend three months drawing something and show him, and he would look up from his paper and just look back down. I got no approval from him for anything I did that was creative.

I think the responsibility lies with the fashion world as a collective. We have to demand more variety.

Another thing that's pathetic is this rule that you have to look ugly to get respect as an actress. Jessica Lange had to make herself look really bad to prove that she had amazing talent.

I never went wrong by being myself.

The faces I see in the modeling industry can get dull.

Growing up, my ideals were Barbra Streisand, Cher, and my mom.