NICHOLAS HASLAM

I wanted to be grown up the minute I could.

I'm about love.

It's rude to not try and look up-to-date. Is rude the right word? Yes! It's rude - rude to other people.

Sunday afternoon is for papers and writing.

New York in the '60s was amazing.

Vanity is not having facelifts if you're ugly. Those people who say: 'Oh, I'd never dream of having anything done!' That's rude. It's rude, to other people, to not try and look your best; to not try and stir things up, to not reinvent... or just invent... it's one's duty to not get stuffy.

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.

I could care less if it's Mick Jagger or the man on the street. I just like interesting people, and I happen to know a lot of stars.

The English truly understand the dynamic between buildings and land.

I don't feel I have to charm somebody, I feel I want to know them; it's a different thing.

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.

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.

I have always aspired towards other people's looks. When I was young, I loved teddy boys; I thought they looked wonderful. Then I was a cowboy in Arizona, really for the clothes! I had a ranch for five years; I had chaps made of bearskin.

I have a thirst - it's an awful word, but I'm thirsty for knowledge. I like knowing things, the odder the better, the more obtuse the better.

I'd like not to have these great puffy lobes on my ears - I'd like them to taper in.

I don't do nostalgia. The phrase 'the good old days' never passes my lips.

I didn't want to look distinguished; I wanted to look fun, and also to fade into the street, into the King's Road. If I don't fade into a room at White's, that's fine. My father was chairman of Brooks' and the Beefsteak, and I was brought up in that life, and it bores me rigid.

I don't really do a big Saturday supper. I prefer entertaining in the daytime.

I think what I have is straightforwardness, unabashedness rather than charm.

I have a natural curiosity for people.

I believe every room speaks, tells you what to do to it. You have to listen to that.

I'm afraid of people, in a way.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to share everything I've got with somebody - and sometimes I think I'm very lucky to have the bathroom to myself. But I feel it would be nice to pass on my knowledge. Perhaps because I haven't got children - one wants to educate somebody.

It's terribly easy to be well dressed. It's much more difficult to be badly dressed.

I go to Topman at lunchtime and stare at these beautiful, beautiful people who work there and who are so well-dressed. And I think: 'Oh! I want to look like that! They're amazing, how well-dressed they are!'