“I have a character failing. I am quite incapable of identifying with anything whole-heartedly. Whatever I am doing, I am always planning to do something else. I would rather travel than arrive.”

“I have no particular interest in antiquities or antiques, but I like things to meet a certain aesthetic.”

“I just don't understand how you can not be concerned about your appearance. From time to time I'm vilified as the person who cares about the look of a teapot - and it's not that I believe my taste is superior, I just can not believe that other people don't care.”

“I wouldn't mind someone lobbing hand grenades at me, but having to reset the timer on the video recorder puts me into a blood-spitting frenzy.”

“If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.”

“In an age robbed of religious symbols, going to the shops replaces going to the church. We have a free choice, but at a price. We can win experience, but never achieve innocence. Marx knew that the epic activities of the modern world involve not lance and sword but dry goods.”

“It is sometimes easier to have furniture made than to find things.”

“My wife and I both love cooking - I am an advanced male - so we argue about who gets to rustle up dinner.”

“Taste is more to do with manners than appearances. Taste is both myth and reality; it is not a style.”

“That's one of the things about getting older isn't it? You suddenly realise that you are what you set out to be. And there are no role models any more.”

“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”

“While there is a great value in things that are old, it seems that the overwhelming challenge in Britain in the late 20th century is to make every effort to see value in the contemporary and in the future.”

“You must never aspire to 'finish' a house, you can merely hope to start it, and from then on it's an evolutionary process.”