Jack Palance was my distant uncle - that's the family gossip. Growing up, my family knew everything about his face getting burned and scarred in the military and how that mutilation led him to become such a famous 'heavy' in films. I prayed for good scars of my own. Not just acne scars.

I don't do much more than organise other people's ideas and insights and thoughts, and sort of harvest them, and inventory them and present them.

I was born in 1962, and it seems that throughout my entire life the world has demanded peace but maintained conflict.

If you flee from the things you fear, there's no resolution.

I think one of the scariest things about depression is that it exists along with the happiness and the joy, and it kind of plays with it and sucks the color from it.

I find it very difficult just to sit. I would love to learn how to do that with contentment.

I had given a presentation on design and happiness for quite a long while at design conferences. I had found thinking about the topic helpful for my own practice, as it forced me to consider the fundamentals, and the feedback from the audience was always enthusiastic.

There are no plans that always work in life. For me, the secret to happiness is being positive and looking at the brighter side of my life.