You want a career? Do that first. You don’t want to have kids? Then don’t. You don’t want to get married? Then don’t. But once you do something, you’ve got to know that there is compromise. – Iman
I was born in Somalia, which is in East Africa. My parents started with nothing: poor, poor, poor. They eloped, which was unheard of in my country, when my father was 17 and my mother was 14. – Iman
Modeling gave me so many experiences, like traveling and being exposed to global cultures, but the most valuable lesson has been working with designers who truly are visionaries in their field. – Iman
I can enjoy what I’m engaged in and be fully present rather than planning my answers to questions while someone else is speaking or thinking about my next appointment while my current engagement is still in in progress. – Iman
My given name was Zahra, which is the ‘flower of the desert.’ I don’t look anything like the flower of the desert. My name was changed by my grandfather to Iman, which means ‘have faith.’ And it meant to have faith that a daughter would come. – Iman
When I was in high school,we were, like, 4,000 or 5,000 students, and 50 girls – and I didn’t have a date for my prom. My father paid my cousin to take me. – Iman
I speak five languages besides mine. I went to school in Egypt because girls weren’t allowed to go to school in Saudi Arabia. It’s very restricting, especially for girls; we’re not allowed to go anywhere. – Iman
We are very private, so we decided from early on that we will keep the press and editors and everybody out of our house. – Iman
One afternoon, on my way to the campus – I was majoring in political science at Nairobi University – a photographer by the name of Peter Beard stopped me in the street and asked me if I’d ever been photographed. – Iman
Eliminating the things you love is not wellness. Wellness feeds your soul and makes you feel good. – Iman
When my daughter Zulekha was born, I was at the pinnacle of my working life as a model, and I pulled myself in two trying to cope with being both a mother and a career girl. – Iman
I suffer from low self-esteem. I had horrible self-esteem growing up. You really have to save yourself because the critic within you will eat you up. It’s not the outside world – it’s your interior life, that critic within you, that you have to silence. – Iman
