Even my aunt Joan, hopelessly sentimental about every member of our family, admitted that I was hideous.

Rooms should be timeless.

Innovation is often the ability to reach into the past and bring back what is good, what is beautiful, what is useful, what is lasting.

Behind every attractive room there should be a very good reason.

I think everyone must have a first memory of some house, some room, a vivid picture that will remain deep down in one forever.

You can never achieve anything in a house unless you have things that have been passed down and you find a place for them for yourself.

It has not been an easy cross to bear. It has caused considerable confusion. My husband constantly complained about the awkwardness of being married to a woman whom he called Sister.

Even the simplest wicker basket can become priceless when it is loved and cared for through the generations of a family.

My world was very limited in size and experience. Small things took on extra importance, at least to a child.

I've definitely had those moments when I think a relationship with somebody is one way, and then it just flips.

Resolve to be among the top 20% of salespeople who make 80% of the sales.

There's so many things that mattered so much in my 20s and 30s that don't matter now.

Comedy is the last refuge of the non-comformist mind.

The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.

I'll agonize over sentences. Mostly because you're trying to create specific effects with sentences, and because there are a number of different voices in the book.

I’d seen him fight before, but it never got old. He was captivating. He never stopped moving. Every action was graceful and lethal. He was a dancer of death.

The events between 1968 and 1980 were the kind of cornerstone for everything I've been able to do, they gave me the springboard.

Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.