Kevin Kwan Quotes

One of my favourite items is a very old jacket - it was my mum's uniform from when she was working 15 or 20 years ago.

The pictures of my family were designed to be on a family wall, they were supposed to be together. It was supposed to copy my mother's wall in her house.

I started drawing a mouse because it was my father's nickname for my mother. And mice are very expressive.

To me, those are the greatest treasures - the personal letters between my parents.

We've all been there - you find something moving, you commission a painting. I know one wall of my living room is taken up by a mural of the end of Toy Story 3.

My mom probably has a record player. I might need to get one.

I have always said, even before I ever did TV, that I have a very dramatic family.

When I paint at home with friends, I have a chat and it's just a good time.

You don't need to rip open walls to transform a space. One of the big things that count is furniture design and painting - things you can do yourself - that alone can transform the space.

Finding a way to really reinterpret your home as an expression of how you live, is really good design in my opinion.

The first photograph I ever experienced consciously is a picture of my mother from before she gave birth to me. Unfortunately, it's a black-and-white photograph, which means that many of the details have been lost, turning into nothing but gray shapes.

It's so important for people to have a space that they love, and that you wake up happy every morning in your house. A big part of that is what you have for your furniture, your art, your decor.

Design should revolve around what the main purpose of the space is. If you plan to live there, it should reflect your personality.

When someone wants to freshen up their home a bit, and they don't want to spend a ton of money on construction, I always tell them to start off with paint. A fresh coat can really change the whole look of a home.

Maybe family is an eternal subject for me.

There was Uncle Ken of mine about whom I wrote a lot of stories. I can always write stories about uncles and aunts and distant relatives. They have to be distant, though; otherwise, you'll be in trouble.

I actually have a pig collection in my cabin: all types of old wood hand-carved pigs that my mom started for me as a housewarming gift.

The last book I read to my mom was 'Barbara Bush: A Memoir' published by mom in 1994. It reflected on their entire life - dad going to China, running the CIA, running for Senate, running for President twice.

A lot of people spend all this time painting their house, picking out rugs, and then they put fluorescent lighting in there. It totally ruins the mood.

Sometimes a single item can wrap up, in a nutshell, who a person is. In my grandparents' home, a clear plastic container was enthroned on top of the mahogany bar for at least a decade. Painted on the lid in pink, yellow and light blue was 'Have a Nosh With Mort & Ethel'.

The memoir was a very personal book. I wrote it as a personal journey and search about who my father was and how my family had come together and come apart - sorting all that out, you know, issues of personal identity.

I think to make your home as comfortable as possible is so important. There’s something really interesting about that as a trend, that whole idea of lifestyle and being happy in your surroundings.

Let me tell you about my family.

I felt [It Runs in the Family] it was a picture that, after I'm gone, my family would like to see it. It was a wonderful mixture of people in my family.

I have a great-great-great-grandfather who was a Confederate cavalry colonel, and I still have his military composite photo on my wall. The chemicals in the photo tint have changed over the years to the point that he looks green. One of my family members apparently still has the piece of paper that listed every thing in his pocket when he got shot.