If I set off to do something, why not do it properly? Otherwise, what's the point?
Comfort? If a choice has to be made between style and comfort, style wins every time.
Sure, I'm hyperactive. I make my staff a bit hyper, too, but motivating someone else is what gives me a buzz.
I think if you have an eye and the ability and the confidence as a designer, you can turn your hand to anything.
I'm never short of inspiration. There are always new ideas - and new adventures.
The architect who first inspired me to follow this profession was Sir John Soane and his Regency home; well, his three homes, now a museum. The place is like an encyclopedia of paintings, antiquities, furniture, sculptures, and drawings.
The building I most admire is the Doges Palace in Venice, both by day and by night. Looking at it from the lagoon, it resembles a floating kilim carpet. I love all the bridges which connect houses, people, gardens and palaces. I also love moats to isolate yourself. A ha-ha for secrecy, as in every English country garden.
A house must be bedded in the landscape. They both have to work together. In and out, every view from a window has to be sensational. Every view into the house must be the same to ensure continuity.
My father wanted a boy. I was supposed to be called Albert. That was probably the beginning of why things got so complicated, because I wasn't a boy.
I don't let many people in. I don't discuss everything. If I don't want to discuss it, I'm not discussing it. I think that annoys the hell out of an awful lot of people.
I really should have been a pharaoh - do you know that?
Acting was fun for a while. I loved every minute of the really good things I did but probably wasn't as good as I should have been.
I like people. Listen, if you're a hotelier, if you're a creative person, and you're working with the things that I do, then you have to like people; otherwise, you simply can't get anywhere.
Good people can get you out of a thousand problems with charm and kindness.
I always like to read something romantic about the place I'm visiting.
I love to get on the road, but I also think arriving is such a thrill. Turning up at the train station in Mumbai, for example, to see people hanging off all the wonderful old carriages. It's extraordinary - everyone sitting with their chickens on their laps, moving forward but not going anywhere fast.
