Words matter. These are the best Kevin McCloud Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
It’s possible to be satisfied with a day’s work or a cake, but a life… what is a life but a history of events badly remembered?
There’s nothing you can do about busted ribs. You just have to wait for them to pop back into place again.
Building your own home is about desire, fantasy. But it’s achievable; anyone can do it.
I’m not too fond of really cool design. I’ve got quite kitsch taste really, in things like tableware. I’m quite a sucker for 1930s pressed glass.
I’m quite shy. Television presents an amplified version of yourself. When I’m on camera I’m pumping more adrenaline, I’m being a bit more engaging than I am in everyday conversation, but that’s normal, isn’t it? Otherwise nobody would want to watch.
I hate negativity. I hate people who say the phrase ‘I hate’. I really don’t like the word ‘hate.’ Dislike, frightened of, terrified of, or yukky – but not ‘hate.’
Because I live in the countryside, I want a building which encourages me to have a fully formed relationship with the environment. It gives me an opportunity to not just be inside or outside, but in a range of contexts.
I’ve got a farm in Somerset, and I think it’s God’s own country. I love it.
Your home should be about enriching the daily experience.
You cannot use the democratic process for the procurement of excellence.
I’m terrified of being poor, I always have been. It’s growing up as a Methodist. I’ll spend that bit of extra money to get a better seat on a train sometimes, because it’s quieter and calmer, but I refuse to spend money on clothes.
Every decently-made object, from a house to a lamp post to a bridge, spoon or egg cup, is not just a piece of ‘stuff’ but a physical embodiment of human energy, testimony to the magical ability of our species to take raw materials and turn them into things of use, value and beauty.
I like the absurd and the surreal: the Coen brothers, Bunuel, Kubrick.
I cannot look at modern buildings without thinking of historical ones.
Building a house from scratch in the middle of a field is a bit like building a prototype car. As with all prototypes, if you’re building a car you usually have the luxury of producing several prototypes before you arrive at the production line version – so the opportunity for changing things is quite rich.
When I left university, I idled around without focus for much too long.
Building design isn’t trendy.
If I welcomed people into my lovely home every week in the pages of a magazine, they’d soon see how incredibly dull it is. It’s important to maintain a bit of mystique.
I’m driven by issues, not driven to be political.
Building your own house is a primal urge, one of those universal genetic drives like the need to provide for your family.
What happened in 2008 stopped people in their tracks. People stopped looking at their homes simply as commodities to exploit and starting thinking about how they might personalise that space and make them less bland and more autobiographical, and that’s healthy, I think.
A friend of mine once wrote a silly article about all these metrosexuals like David Beckham wearing sarongs, and she described me as a ‘heteropolitan.’ I don’t know what that means. I think it was a joke.
I don’t look at what people do with their homes in terms of money, but the social and personal value of what they’re trying to do and achieve.
I’ve had my fair share of colds, which last longer than they should and can cause wheezing, so I avoid people who are sneezing like the plague and am scrupulous about hygiene and hand-washing.
I spend a frightening amount of money on books.
