THE SELF-INVENTION OF TYRA BANKS:

When she was 20, she wrote in one of her notebooks: “If Michael Jordan can sell tennis shoes and Magic Johnson can sell cars, I can sell cornflakes. I can and I will. So just sit back and relax because here I come. . . . I’m going to hurt and abuse.” Banks looked pleased when she read that passage aloud. “It was a moment,” she said now. “When I showed that to my mom the other day, she said, ‘You didn’t just happen overnight.’ ”

Not many do. But “hurt and abuse”? Still, you have to love this bit: “We were in Rome for ‘America’s Next Top Model’ and I said to my v.p. at Bankable: ‘Look at this gorgeous architecture! But if there was a Wendy’s and a Wal-Mart right in the middle of it — bam! It would be even more gorgeous.’ ”

On the other hand, there’s this:

She studied another photo. “This girl is a bombshell,” she said. “Is she Southern?”

“Yes,” Mok said. “I wonder if she’s bigoted. That could be interesting.”

Well, somebody’s got a touch of bigotry there.