If you said to me, 'Lie down on that concrete floor and fall asleep,' I could do it. I can sleep anywhere at any time of day on any surface.

Building your own house is a primal urge, one of those universal genetic drives like the need to provide for your family.

Sustainability is now a big baggy sack in which people throw all kinds of old ideas, hot air and dodgy activities in order to be able to greenwash their products and feel good.

Building your own home is about desire, fantasy. But it's achievable; anyone can do it.

I don't look at what people do with their homes in terms of money, but the social and personal value of what they're trying to do and achieve.

Architecture was pretty much the sexiest thing to be doing from 1700-1800.

It's possible to be satisfied with a day's work or a cake, but a life... what is a life but a history of events badly remembered?

Every breath we take as human beings damages the planet.

Generally speaking, I think that if you do anything with commitment and passion, it will come good.

Living an environmentally responsible lifestyle can seem like a Scrooge-like list of don'ts. Don't take that flight, don't buy that car, don't eat those blueberries flown in from somewhere far-flung.

I'm terribly fastidious. I like symmetry and neatness, but my house is as chaotic as any other family's.

I love it as it is, because it is a story, and it isn't stuck in one place.

I have mental joys and mental health Mental friends and mental wealth I've a wife that I love and that loves me I've all but riches bodily.

To lose a child ... was something that could end one's world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon disappeared. The birds became silent.

Having been a chef for some many years, I understand what it's like to work really, really hard to get good at something, only to have someone piss all over it.

I'm a goner, a kid who stays up half the night trying to figure out the horror of the world and trying to survive it.

I am determined to hold on as long as possible, but if I should disappear, I should not have had the time to familiarize my successors with the necessary information.

Trying to solve the problem by creating more debt is analogous to trying to stop being an alcoholic by going on a bender down at the corner bar.

Literary education is of no value, if it is not able to build up a sound character.

Family photo albums are so powerful in that they make kids feel valued, cherished and respected.

But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.