Tamara Mellon Quotes

Don't instill, or allow anybody else to instill into the hearts of your girls the idea that marriage is the chief end of life. If you do, don't be surprised if they get engaged to the first empty, useless fool they come across.

I just don't want to be the little wife sitting at home. I want to do something worthwhile.

Don't let others define you. You define yourself.

You own your identity; it is important to feel that way.

I think so many women allow themselves to be defined by somebody else's narrative.

Others do not define you - you define yourself through your words and actions.

I'm a fashion designer. I don't want to be defined as someone's girlfriend.

It's not necessary, in order to be a complete person, that I have a man. It's not the end-all, be-all of my life.

If you're a caretaker, who are you when there's no one else to take care of?

I wasn't ever interested in marrying someone else's career or bank account.

I am not an ux. I am a person and a woman. I am not appended to my husband. We are just married.

My mother was in the kind of late-'60s, early-'70s origins of female emancipation. And she was very much like, 'You're not going to be defined by how you look. It's going to be about who you are and what you do.'

Acting is a job of permission. Someone has to give you permission to do it. But I have started to be like, 'I only want to do things that I want to do,' and writing has afforded me the luxury.

I didn't have to listen to nobody or look how anybody wanted me to look. I just wanted to be myself and look however I want.

My life is not as dramatic as it is depicted in the shows. I am not at all submissive. I am free-spirited.

I can't let anybody tell me what I'm going to be.

Don't let 'having it all' be defined by someone else.

I want to be my own person. I want to make a name for myself instead of having the name attached to me.

I think - and even with the Live Chin Up movement - it's about women doing things for themselves. Being empowered. Doing things that make you happy. I believe in that philosophy.

Once you start carrying your own suitcase, paying your own bills, running your own show, you've done something to yourself that makes you one of those women men like to call 'a pal' and 'a good sport,' the kind of woman they tell their troubles to. But you've cut yourself off from the orchids and the diamond bracelets, except those you buy yourself.

When who you are and what you are is not decided by any external forces, then you are in dignity.

Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills. I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn’t like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife.

I must work, so as not to be a fool, to get on, to become a journalist, because that's what I want!... I can't imagine that I would have to lead the same sort of life as Mummyand all the women who do their work and are then forgotten. I must have something besides a husband and children, something that I can devote myself to!

I never wanted to be a trophy wife. I wanted to make it on my own. I didn't want to depend on a man.