...When someone asks me to help create a room my first reaction, if I do not already know the person, is to try to feel out what he or she really wants the room to be and to understand, if possible, what "memory," old or new, has brought this idea about.

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.

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

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.

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.