Green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart.

A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations.

To plant trees is to give body and life to one's dreams of a better world.

A garden really lives only insofar as it is an expression of faith, the embodiment of a hope and a song of praise.

Garden making, like gardening itself, concerns the relationship of the human being to his natural surroundings.

I'm tired, it's raining, and I am not a waterlily.

My pre-occupation is with the relationship between objects, whether I am dealing with woods, fields or water, rocks or trees, shrubs and plants, or groups of plants.

Limitations imply possibilities. A problem is a challenge.

You'll never have a garden - a garden needs walls and you have no walls.

How lonely it is!To be drowning, in a placewhere everyone can swim.

The alchemy of life is to turn coins into cents, by making sense of change.

I don't know how long I'll be competing but I'll always be surfing. I'll be surfing until I'm old.

Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

All good novelists have bad memories.

And often it would be a woman who was in her 70s or 80s who would win the beauty contest, because bound feet never age.

You don't do pictures because the audience is ready for them. You do them because there's something gnawing at you, something inside.

Also, I have found that I really like to work in English. It's very strange because it's exactly the opposite of what I thought it would be like.

Let me whisper it. Let me sigh it. Let me sing it, my dear or I will cry it.

I work to loud music - hard-rock stuff like AC/DC, Guns 'n Roses, and Metallica have always been particular favorites - but for me the music is just another way of shutting the door.