Douglas Wilson Quotations

Designing is a lot like a high-wire act - if the tightrope walker is only six inches off the ground, where's the excitement?

Whether it was working on theatre sets or stage lighting, I didn't realize most all of the skills I was exposed to were going to come in handy later on when I became a designer.

There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure.

What people respond to in my room makeovers is the daring design - fearless colors, bold fabrics and occasionally outlandish decor.

I see the same coffee table everywhere. It's mass marketing.

A challenge always is good. Normal design does not come under the constraints of a small budget and time frame. But it has helped me to make quick and knowledgeable decisions.

I'm opinionated. I always stick to my design plan. I don't waver.

I'm very flattered, but I don't think I'm the sexiest man on the planet.

Being in the design industry, I've tended to meet more people who are affected by HIV and AIDS.

I've made an incredible amount of money stealing fans from homeowners.

In two days, it's hard to to get the quality you would normally want for a design project.

It's a character I've created. Actually, that's pretty much the opposite of me, off a farm in the Midwest.

There are lighter colors of granite and I like to break the rules.

Why stress tomorrow when you can stress today?

Yeah, I spent about 20 years in a dorm room. It took me a while to graduate.

I was supposed to be the antithesis of Frank.

I'm having the time of my life and I'm glad people are enjoy it.

I've enjoyed being a part of something from the beginning, when we were still finding our footing.

I've had rooms that didn't come out to my liking.

Little did we know it would be watched by millions of people and break viewing records.

You have to put your own personality into your home. Do what you feel is you!

Throughout the country, I see the same design problems and solutions over and over.

This process covers 60 percent of the Earth's surface, and it's an ongoing process that has replaced all of the seafloor since 180 million years ago. In terms of understanding the planet, it's a fundamental process.

But this is not a how-to show, it's a conceptual show. It's about ideas. It's about fun.

I have bare bulbs hanging from my ceiling. I got this gig when I was renovating my apartment and didn't get to finish.

We do a lot of urban infill all over California. It's a very attractive site because it's sizable. The ingress and egress is great. You have the golf course across the freeway and a lot of retail in the area.

Confession of sins is not meritorious: to confess sins as a way of placing God in your debt is not dealing with sin; it is committing another sin. The context of all confession must be the free grace of justification.

I gave the couple a hint of a design that would work great with the bones of their home. They weren't ready for it, and they embarrassed themselves and that's too bad.

In Acts 14:1, we are told, "At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed." This is what should be sought in Christian schools, not just teaching, but effective teaching. Christian content alone is insufficient. It must be presented in a certain way, and that way cannot be reduced to technique. Nevertheless, God has graciously made it possible to bring people the truth by how the truth is presented.

The TSA must think we're mushrooms. You know, the way they are trying to keep us in the dark, and the way they keep feeding us a fertilizing agent that comes from the south end of a north-bound cow.

Ripping up carpet is easy, tiling is the issue.

Liars are experts in chopping logic and missing the truth slightly - 'Did God say not to eat from any tree?' In order to pin a liar down, words must be defined in the most careful manner available.

Fatherlessness is a rot that is eating away at the modern soul.

If you keep the law of God, you are not described in Scripture as a pinched legalist, but rather as happy (Prov. 29:18).

You don't have the right to be left alone with that abortion decision. The child is present...you are not alone.

If boys don't learn, men won't know.

If it does not come at the last to gladness, then to hell with it.

The medievalist has the capacity, and the desire, to harmonize. He believes the planets sing in harmony; why cannot technology also sing?

Your deep interests should always have a dog-eared place on your nightstand.

God picks us up where we are, not where we should have been

We cannot pursue a classical and Christian education as a fad. We are not purchasing intellectual hula hoops for the kids.

For the people of God, the Word of God leaves pleasant bruises.

Beware of anyone who claims to be neutral, for they always have an agenda.

I am the young, edgy New Yorker.

How would you describe the spiritual aroma of your home? The source of this aroma is the relationship between husband and wife. Many can fake an attempt at keeping God’s standards in some external way. What we cannot fake is the resulting, distinctive aroma of pleasure to God. Most marriage books address the mere externals of marriage, without seeking to understand the heart issues. Godly marriages proceed from an obedient heart, and the greatest desire of an obedient heart is the glory of God, not the happiness of the household.

But for you to make this move would reveal the two fundamental tenets of true atheism. One: There is no God. Two: I hate Him.

Whether the Bible is Law or Gospel depends on the spiritual condition of the one hearing it. If someone is regenerate and loves God, then the whole Bible is Gospel to him. If someone is unregenerate and hates God, the whole Bible is Law to him, the whole thing condemns him.

Wealth is a gift from God, and pride is bequeathed to us from the devil.

How is it possible to live like a machine and bear fruit like a tree?

I want to get the point across that you may not have money to give to a charity, whether that is Ronald McDonald House or Broadway Cares or DIFFA, but you can help RAISE money or give your time and talents.

I enjoy talking to fans.

We're able to influence younger generations on design and art. They might not have realized they were an artist.

I know people dont think I work.

A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.

I believe firmly in plodding. Productivity is more a matter of diligent, long-distance hiking than it is one-hundred-yard dashing. Doing a little bit now is far better than hoping to do a lot on the morrow. So redeem the fifteen minute spaces. Chip away at it.

I write in order to make the little voices in my head go away. Thus far it hasn't worked.

Immodest and attractive is easy. Modest and repulsive is easy too. But modest and attractive is an art form.

Stories in themselves are not automatically good; it has to be the right kind of story told by the right kind of person.

Masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility.

Education is the process of selling someone on books.

As you read, allow your reading to cluster around your interests.

Use plants to bring life

If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else

Honor must start in the heart, but if it ends there, it isn’t honor. Honor must be expressed through words, symbols, actions, or gestures. Honor is among the most incarnational of the virtues. It must have feet and hands.

To say that someone is a conservative does not tell us what he is interested in conserving.

Pace yourself in your reading. A little bit every day really adds up. If you read during sporadic reading jags, the fits and starts will not get you anywhere close to the amount of reading you will need to do. It is far better to walk a mile a day than to run five miles every other month. Make time for reading, and make a daily habit of it, even if it is a relatively small daily habit.

God gave us minds to think with and hearts to thank with. Instead we use our hearts to think about the world as we would like it to have been, and we use our minds to come up with rationalizations for our ingratitude. We are a murmuring, discontented, unhappy, ungrateful people. And because we think we want salvation from our discontents...

Become the kind of person the kind of person you would like to marry would like to marry.

A great reformation and revival-it will happen the same way the early Christians conquered Rome. Their program of conquest consisted largely of two elements: gospel preaching and being eaten by lions, a strategy that has not yet captured the imagination of the the contemporary church.

There is no reason to spend $400 a year on curtain fabric.

Once you put money into good cabinetry, you really should be able to have those forever.

This isn't like real design because it's just about changing the room, they can finish it up the rest of the way.

They don't know they're living in a glass house.

They don't have to listen to anybody - except a professional designer, of course.

There will be a residential focus. There are a lot of hotels there. But we see this as more of a residential focus.

It started as just a little cable show.

It's hard to design a space when people just say they need help with a sun room. You can do anything with any room.

Don't buy mediocre things to fill up your house. Buy a few good pieces, and in the long run you're going to save money.

Sun rooms don't have to look like a sun room.

I try to instill in people the idea that they've all got individual personalities, and they should do what they want to their homes.

I incorporate conflict and resolution into the show - hey, that's Drama 101.

I look at each episode in two ways - from a design standpoint and from an entertainment standpoint - this is TV, after all. We usually succeed on at least one of the levels.

I don't think either side understood just how critical an issue it was, especially in places like Arizona. The politicians now understand.