David Linley

“When I would visit my Granny as a little boy, we would play this game of closing our eyes and describing everything around us. The color of a tie. The shade of a cloth. It was really quite a wonderful way to learn how to look, to notice things and to appreciate what is around you.”

“I'm quite well known for wearing polo necks. I get them from John Smedley.”

“Children love making things, but they don't get the same opportunities now as practical subjects seem to be sidelined. I would love to see schools offering much more in the way of practical subjects to let children see what they can do.”

“I would prefer to be called David Linley. No one refers to me as Lord Linley in London. It's an American thing.”

“A lot of the design courses in schools and colleges don't incorporate very much making, and a lot of the making courses incorporate too much technology and computers.”

“My father and I share a passion for how things work, which in my case took the form of schoolboy fascination with machines and mechanical contraptions.”

“Since childhood, Claridge's has always been a very special place for me. I associate it with celebrations, happy times.”

“I used to sit and draw in the evening with a couple of crates of beer. That makes the ideas flow.”

“Someone did once bow to me, and my mother immediately told them off. Although whether she was prompted by the breach of protocol or the fact I enjoyed it a little too much, I really couldn't say.”

“My daughter does sewing, needlepoint and very good drawings. My son plays the piano.”

“In close-nailed furniture, if the nails used are identical they have been manufactured industrially, which implies a date after 1850.”

“The year 2006, when I came to Christie's, was a very euphoric time to be part of the art world.”

“My teaching was primarily focused on making, it wasn't about the pounds, shillings and pence. I remember being in college and being in business and there was just a weekend in between.”

“We are not training crafts people as we used to do. We're not giving people the chance to learn. Education has become very academic. There's nothing wrong with academic for some people, but not all.”

“If you cut me open, you would find bits of me looking at things with an aesthetic eye, also with a historical eye. But mostly at the way things have transported themselves through time.”

“I have always loved wood. Every piece is different. It gets better with age and it has a certain character all of its own.”

“I reckon if you stick to the same thing every day for lunch when you are traveling, you know where you are. And it is one less decision to make.”

“Some of my best moments have been in friends' libraries. They give you a sense of quiet, well-being and order that a media room does not.”

“Subodh Gupta works because his artistic vocabulary is firmly rooted in the vernacular of everyday India.”

“We had an immensely happy childhood.”