Lizzie Armitstead Quotes

An elaborate system of etiquette and social standards flowered around the home phone: how long a child might be allowed to stay on the phone, how late one could call without being impolite, and of course, the dread implications of a late night call which violated that norm.

A lot of people don't know how to talk on the phone anymore.

Last winter when I was coming home from church one Thursday evening, I saw somebody run around the house again. I told my father of that.

I hate phone calls, so I believe in a telephone armistice. To me, the idea of calling someone unprompted is basically saying, 'Hey, stop whatever you're doing and talk to me right now.' If you find yourself in the middle of something, getting an unprompted annoyance is incredibly frustrating.

I allow those phones to ring, and I go straight to it. As a result, I get some very, very strange phone calls.

I hate phone calls so I believe in a telephone armistice. To me, the idea of calling someone unprompted is basically saying, 'Hey, stop whatever you're doing and talk to me right now.

Mom and Dad would stay in bed on Sunday morning, but the kids would have to go to church.

I come from a blue collar family, but my personal life isn't. I didn't get the gene that my grandfather had in spades. He was a local hero. Built the church that I went to. Built the house I grew up in. Steamfitter, pipefitter, electrician, mechanic and plumber. I wanted to do those things. But it just didn't come easy.

Every summer, my grandparents would rent a house on Balboa Island. They had the house next to Bob Hope's. I've been going down there all my life, to that whole area.

One thing I always make - and I'm sure this is partly to do with memory and yearning and because I've made it ever since my children were born - I make gingerbread every year. And it's partly just the perfume of the spices in the house, makes it smell like winter to me.

A man in the house is worth two in the street.

Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.

My dad played guitar, and so there were always guitars kicking around the house that I was never allowed to touch. My cousin gave me a twin-neck electric guitar for one of my birthdays. It was amazing. Even though it was mine, I was never allowed to pick it up.

We have a nanny in the house, but there are always times when one of my kids does something bad or wrong, and they'll listen to me more than they do the nanny. So I think it's important to set up that boundary of respect for them at a young age, so they will know, 'I better listen to Mommy.'

My grandmother would start making her meat sauce at 7 in the morning on Sunday, and within five or six hours, that smell would be all through the house.

Our parents didn't let us watch a lot of television growing up. We had Disney on Sunday nights, and at 8:30, they were like, 'Turn it off! Go to bed!'

I don't ever remember not praying. Bedtime prayers, the rosary, praying for friends, relatives, for the sick and for those who had died. It was a natural part of our lives.

My mother never cursed at home; my father never cursed at home. My father didn't drink. Even though we were poor, we would say a blessing over the table. So that's who I am.

As a child, I saw my mother prepare for Christmas every year, and it never occurred to me that labor was involved. I thought it was my mother's joy and privilege to hang tinsel on the tree strand by strand, to make sure that every room in the house had a touch of Christmas, down to the Santa-themed rug and hand towels in the bathroom.

At my house, I can operate pretty much everything from my phone. I can be anywhere in the world and adjust the temperature, check my security cameras and talk to people in the house. I can even turn on the TVs.

My dad was a professional musician; my mom played, too, but just for fun. All my siblings played. The house was full of music books, videos, albums. I guess it's not surprising that I ended up becoming a musician.

My dad loved Deco as a player. He started calling me Deco as a nickname around the house.

I always found it strange, when I went round to other people's houses for tea and that, how strict their parents were.

My uncle used to play cricket. I got used to the game at home. As kids we used to all wonder seeing the bats lying around the house. As we grew older, we realised what the game was all about, and then our interest in the game grew.

Despite strict instructions from my mother not to step out of the house, I cycled all the way to Vellore to watch 'Thevar Magan.' In fact, I grew up watching classic films such as 'Naayakan,' 'Thaalapathi' and 'En Bommukutty Ammavukku.'