“My dreams were always small and puny. All I ever needed was a little house with a little picket fence by the sea. Little did I know that I would live in Malacanang Palace for 20 years and visit all the major palaces of mankind. And then also meet ordinary citizens and the leaders of superpowers.”

“I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.”

“When they see me holding fish, they can see that I am comfortable with kings as well as with paupers.”

“I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.”

“Filipinos want beauty. I have to look beautiful so that the poor Filipinos will have a star to look at from their slums.”

“People say I'm extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?”

“Filipinos don't wallow in what is miserable and ugly. They recycle the bad into things of beauty.”

“It is shallow people who think beauty is frivolous or excessive. If you are bringing beauty and god, you are enriching the country. Rice feeds the body, books feed the mind, beauty feeds the soul. It is one thing I can really be proud of and stand tall in the world.”

“The only rich person is a person who is rich in spirit. I have no money deposit. I have only beauty deposit.”

“I always say you can never be extravagant with beauty. Beauty is God made real. Beauty is life.”

“Life is not a matter of place, things or comfort; rather, it concerns the basic human rights of family, country, justice and human dignity.”