MIREILLE GUILIANO

Intelligence, knowledge or experience are important and might get you a job, but strong communication skills are what will get you promoted.

If you believe you can shed pounds quickly by force of will and deprivation, you will in all likelihood not only regain the ones you lost, but add a few more besides.

With technology, there is so much isolation with people now, that there are very few places where you can connect.

Women are smarter by basic instinct and by what we have to do to multitask at home and at work. My mother did that 50 years ago, but it wasn't called multitasking or stress back then. She had a job, two kids and the meals to make with no cook or maid. My father would come home every day and expect lunch. He was a nice guy, but he was clueless!

There is no lasting glory in rapid weight loss.

My friends say everything I touch turns to gold. I'll say, 'I've been very lucky.'

I've never been ambitious.

Make treating yourself a priority and always remember your life is happening now. Don't put off all your dreams and pleasures to another day. In any balanced personal definition of success there has to be a powerful element of living life in the present.

I can never leave a bookstore without buying a book. I read four or five at a time.

Once you have to start counting calories, it takes away from the joy of eating.

I'm not a great consumer. I always ask myself, 'Do I really need that piece?' I have friends who have 300 pairs of shoes; how would you leave the house in the morning?

I love my kitchen. For Manhattan, I have a rather decent-size kitchen, and it has an opening that gives out to the dining room, which has a window with a view of the city and in the distance the Statue of Liberty.

The word that I constantly hear out of women is 'fear.' It's almost like a background melody. Women have excellent degrees and experience, but we are afraid we aren't good enough because we have such high expectations.

We only have one body, and you have to show respect for it.

Being and working in America, it's very important to work hard, work smart and work in a certain way. France and Europe has, with the tradition and culture, it's slow-moving and it's not always good.

Since the pleasure of most foods is in the first few bites, eat one thing on your plate at a time, at least at the start of the meal when you can concentrate and enjoy the full flavors.

People are unhappy when they are on diets, because it's 'don't do this, don't do that, do this, do that.'

I find it so unattractive when women wear sneakers with their business suits. I wear a nice pair of loafers or low-heeled pumps, and that's that.

Just as established products and brands need updating to stay alive and vibrant, you periodically need to refresh or reinvent yourself.

When I grew up in France, I was a normal size. And then I came to the United States and I gained 20 pounds.

Taking care of your mental and physical health is just as important as any career move or responsibility.

In France we have a saying, 'Joie de vivre,' which actually doesn't exist in the English language. It means looking at your life as something that is to be taken with great pleasure and enjoy it.

We women are so judged by the way we dress, and men are not. So style is part of developing your own brand.

In the U.S., too many yogurts are filled with corn syrup, preservatives, artificial this and that. To me, this is poison.

Quality of life is very important in France. I have many friends who turned down promotions and more money because it would affect their quality of life as a couple or a mother.