Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I never get bored of my wife. It's lovely.
Always take much less than you think you'll need.
Be kind to your garden and be gentle on your back!
The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.
A garden is a grand teacher... above all it teaches entire trust.
Gardening is, apart from having children, the most rewarding thing in life
For a woman, a son offers the best chance to know the mysterious male existence.
I am partly to blame for the decking boom, and I am sorry, I know it?s everywhere these days.
I love Paris for its wide boulevards and cafes, and Rome for the ancient history, as seen at the Forum.
I get nice letters, but really I have no idea. I just try to enthuse people. You've been married for 31 years.
There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the yet distant, but surely coming, summer.
I'm a big fan of the Queen. She carries herself well, as does the Prince of Wales, despite getting lots of stick.
It's never much fun at school - it's just dates. Then as you get older, for some reason, you get more interested.
To plant and maintain a flower border, with a good scheme for colour, is by no means the easy thing that is commonly supposed.
The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies, but grows to the enduring happiness that the love of gardening gives.
It is no use asking me or anyone else how to dig... Better to go and watch a man digging, and then take a spade and try to do it.
Don't overdo the booze especially while flying - just because it's there doesn't mean you need to drink it. Everything in moderation.
The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.
A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.
I think I was always realistic - well, not the Percy thing, that was ridiculous - but I never dreamed of being a racing car driver or anything.
There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight.
It has taken me half a lifetime merely to find out what is best worth doing, and a good slice out of another half to puzzle out the ways of doing it.
When I'm in Italy on a Friday night, my first supper there is a big bowl of fresh pasta and a glass of local wine, sitting outside. There's nothing better.
I've covered a lot of the British countryside and the UK from top to bottom and side to side. It's such a pity more people don't appreciate what's on their doorstep.
People think cruises are for old folk, but they are amazing, as you get to see so many places, and you're never stuck as you're docked in a different port every day.
In garden arrangement, as in all other kinds of decorative work, one has not only to acquire a knowledge of what to do, but also to gain some wisdom in perceiving what it is well to let alone.
Depends on the evening. A good red wine is nice in cold weather. A Claret or a Rioja. I've got a good gin we make from damson plums. And you can't beat a glass of champagne every now and again.
You hope people won't be tricky or miserable. If you're in public life, it's important not to be. If someone says, 'I like your programme, thank you,' you should be grateful. I am. Why be nasty?
I do not envy the owners of very large gardens. The garden should fit its owner or his or her tastes, just as one's clothes do; it should be neither too large nor too small, but just comfortable.
What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade.
Once I was on a plane and a woman said to me, 'Now, what's the matter with my tomatoes?' And I said, 'Well, it's a bit difficult to see from here.' She took offence and said, 'I was only trying to be friendly.'
My wife and I always have a winter holiday that I call the "fly and flop". In January and February, you don't want culture, you just want to get your bones warm and eat, drink, sleep. We usually go to the Caribbean.
Oh, and I have to mention one lady who does all of my book covers in cross stitch and frames them. Muriel. She's amazing. I just received one for my latest, Love And Dr Devon, actually. It's very sweet of her to do it.
For the best building and planting...the architect and gardener must have some knowledge of each other's business, and each must regard with feelings of kindly reverence the unknown domains of the other's higher knowledge.
Julia Roberts was really rather lovely. I had to interview her on Pebble Mill At One years ago. You learn not to be starstruck if you're trying to get a decent interview out of someone. If you fall apart it's counter productive.
There is a lovable quality about the actual tools. One feels so kindly to the thing that enables the hand to obey the brain. Moreover, one feels a good deal of respect for it; without it the brain and the hand would be helpless.
The tie is stronger than that between father and son and father and daughter. The bond is also more complex than the one between mother and daughter. For a woman, a son offers the best chance to know the mysterious male existence.
More than half a century has passed, and yet each spring, when I wander into the primrose wood, I see the pale yellow blooms and smell their sweetest scent - for a moment I am seven years old again and wandering in that fragrant wood.
I don't spend much on clothes. I buy old books. I tell myself I ought to save - it's the classic Northern work ethic. I like good holidays, though. I'm a big fan of cruises. I love unpacking once and having the scenery change every day.
I get up to 400 letters a week, so I have a full-time PA, but I try to answer everything. People don't seem to realise that if they send something living in the post it's going to die on the way. Especially when you wrap it in a polythene bag.
Georgian England, to see those wonderful houses being built. And the clothes were interesting too, although I wouldn't want to wear a wig. It's also the most beautiful period of English landscape gardening. They had famous gardeners like Capability Brown.
I was very inventive. I lived in my own world - my dad said I was a loner. Not lonely, just happy in my own company. It's the same now. I need time alone, which is maybe why I love to write. Having said that, I love the sociability of telly. It's a nice contrast.
The possession of a quantity of plants, however good the plants may be themselves and however ample their number, does not make a garden; it only makes a collection. Having got the plants, the great thing is to use them with careful selection and definite intention.
Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle. One lifetime is never enough to accomplish one's horticultural goals. If a garden is a site for the imagination, how can we be very far from the beginning?
I love Chatsworth, Winchester Cathedral, Edinburgh Castle... Every time I'm in the vicinity of something old and worth looking at, I try to go. You don't even have to leave your home town to see some places. How many Londoners have seen the crown jewels? Not many, and they'll blow you away, I promise.
I plant rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant is it to know that at every few steps one may draw the kindly branchlets through one's hand, and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense; and I grow it against walls, so that the sun may draw out its inexhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass.
I don't like people being rude. Bad manners and arrogance make me cross. People making others feel uncomfortable. And I really don't like it in restaurants when people are rude or patronising to waiters. I feel like saying, 'They're not your slave'. But my knees only shake around once every five years. You're safe, don't worry.
If you take any flower you please and look it over and turn it about and smell it and feel it and try to find out all its little secrets, not of flower only but of leaf, bud and stem as well, you will discover many wonderful things. This is how you make friends with plants, and very good friends you will find them to the end of our lives.
At school I was called Fred, which is my middle name. At that time, Fred was considered to be a bit of a horrible name, so that's why. Otherwise, I was called Titchy because I was little. I was still only about 4ft something when I left school. I grew a foot under glass in my first year as a gardener. It's really quite amazing what sun and manure can do.
I had the heaviest paper round in Ilkley, West Yorks, and if you look at my shoulders one is still lower than the other. I also did a milk round for a day. It was awful. I was a very surly milkman, because it was very cold, very dark and very early. I am a lark, not an owl, but not in winter when it's chilly. Apart from that I went straight into gardening at 15.