Nicholas Haslam Quotes

“I tend to look out for things with a resonance to my youth - artists or objects that seemed romantic all those years ago. I never buy anything purely for its value. I like possessions that smile back at me.”

“It's the fashion, I tell you: big, tall women going out with tiny, tiny men.”

“I rent a Jacobean-fronted hunting lodge in Hampshire from the National Trust and like to go there as much as possible. I've grown to love it so much, especially when writing my memoirs there at weekends.”

“Often it's a lack of time, not taste, that leads someone to hire a decorator. A good decorator/client relationship should be like a marriage. The time one puts in needs to be extensive. One needs to listen to them and understand what they like and how they live.”

“Interestingly, the word 'person' did not originally refer to the individual in the way we tend to use it today. Instead, 'person' came, via french, from the Latin word 'persona', which referred to the mask worn by tan actor to protray a particular character. In this theatrical sense, personality has to do with the role or character that the person plays in life's drama. The person's individuality, in this sense, is a matter of the roles or characters that he or she assumes.”

“Let go of all expectations, and you shall never be disappointed. I find that rather disappointing to never be disappointed is very expected. Therefore let's only let go of those expectations we know will disappoint us and let's expect to be disappointed sometimes. Life is beautiful that way.”

“Haslam leaves us in no doubt what we are supposed to make of Matthews' mental world: this is gibberish and nothing more.”

“Peter, who broke his enemies on the rack and hanged them in Red Square, who had his son tortured to death, is Peter the Great. But Nicholas, whose hand was lighter than that of any tsar before him, is "Bloody Nicholas". In human terms, this is irony rich and dramatic, the more so because Nicholas knew what he was called.”

“It's funny, but have you ever noticed that the more special something is, the more people seem to take it for granted? It's like they think it won't ever change. Just like this house here. All it ever needed was a little attention, and it would never have ended up like this in the first place.”

“How far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?”