Margo Kaufman Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

Trying to control construction costs is like trying to control the cost of a hospital stay. You may not realize that when you sneeze and the nurse hands you a box of tissues, it generates a $5 charge on your bill. But you still have to pay.

Margo Kaufman
At the beginning of a remodel, money is everything, but as you go along, it becomes secondary to the vision. You can't have the house looking like a glorious jewel and leave the cracked linoleum or the icky light fixture, so you spend and spend and spend. Then one day it suddenly occurs to you that all that play money you've been throwing around is real - and it's in someone else's bank account.

Margo Kaufman
I asked my vet what kind of dog he'd get. He told me, 'I'd get a Chihuahua, because when it died, I wouldn't care.'

Margo Kaufman
Making home improvements is an addiction that can be cured only by bankruptcy.

Margo Kaufman
We are living in the era of the busybody. In ancient Greece, if a person wanted guidance, it involved a long, arduous expensive journey to consult the oracle at Delphi. Today, if you want guidance, all you have to do is unplug your ears.

Margo Kaufman
As always during periods of stress, I was guided by my mantra, 'Run away.'

Margo Kaufman
Anyone who believes that men and women have the same mind-set hasn't lived on earth. A man thinks that everything he does is wonderful, that the sun rises and sets around him. But a woman has doubts.

Margo Kaufman
House guests (I don't care who they are, how much I like them, or how long it's been since I last saw them) are pests, much like roaches and mice. But there are differences. You can trap roaches and mice. And they don't want you to drive them to Disneyland.

Margo Kaufman
International adoption was a straightforward albeit Byzantine process requiring an obsessive-compulsive desire to organize paperwork, the ability to extract information from intractable bureaucracies, a high tolerance for the unknown, and a willingness to journey to a foreign land.

Margo Kaufman
Blueprints are like pets and children — difficult to appreciate or understand unless they're yours.

Margo Kaufman
My sister... believes that there should be a theme park based on the male ego, only 'there's not enough land.'

Margo Kaufman
Call me an alarmist, but there are certain words I don't like to hear together: cheap fireplace, discount brakes, cut-rate surgery.

Margo Kaufman
But a hobby, like a habit, makes you forget about important things in life.

Margo Kaufman
Probably is not a word I like to hear when I'm talking about our chances of recouping a huge investment.

Margo Kaufman
A book collection is a cross between a Rorschach test and This Is Y our Life. It marks your life clearly like rings on a tree.

Margo Kaufman
One person's mess is merely another person's filing system.

Margo Kaufman
There is a magical place that you can only get to when you are willing to walk away. In this paradisiacal spot you can negotiate effectively for what you truly want because you no longer give a damn.... But you can't feign indifference; the universe only responds when you're serious.

Margo Kaufman
Cupid's arrows rarely strike two people with the same definition of cleanliness.

Margo Kaufman
Remodeling is like pulling a loose thread on a cheap sweater — the job keeps unraveling.

Margo Kaufman