Quotes by Martha Stewart

Giving information that will help everybody live better. That's a teacher's dream—to accumulate information and disperse it in a form that allows people to choose the way they're going to use it. That's what I think I do best.

I'm a maniacal perfectionist. And if I weren't, I wouldn't have this company.... I have proven that being a perfectionist can be profitable and admirable when creating content across the board: in television, books, newspapers, radio, videos.

To what do you attribute the success you've had?

When I was growing up my mom was home. She wanted to go to work, but she waited. She was educated as a teacher. The minute my youngest sister went to school full-time, from first grade, mom went back to work. But she balanced her life. She chose teaching which enabled her to leave at the same time we left, and come home pretty much the same time we came home. She knew how to balance.

When I got married and had a child and went to work, my day was all day, all night. You lose your sense of balance. That was in the late '60s, '70s, women went to work, they went crazy. They thought the workplace was much more exciting than the home. They thought the family could wait. And you know what? The family can't wait. And women have now found that out. It all has to do with women, or the homemaker leaving the home and realizing that where they've gone is not as fabulous, or as rewarding, or as self-fulfilling as the balance between the workplace and the home place.

For me, an American Dream, if you read Theodore Dreiser, or you read other people who have written about what they consider the American Dream, it always has to do with monetary success, or poor boy makes good, or that kind of thing. To me that's not what it's all about. It's about, actually, when you get to be my age, having kind of a serenity about your life, and a good feeling about what you have done and what you can still do.

And also, believing all the time that there is the freedom to do what you want to do. The ability, in your walking existence, to go out your front door and not be obstructed in any way. But there are always limitations, and there are limitations that are set by geographical boundaries, territorial boundaries, political boundaries that you have to live with and you have to understand those.

We're not so free that we don't have to listen to rules, and laws, and regulations. Those are important. But the spirit, the freedom of the spirit, that's what I think of American Dream, that we are free here to do what we want to do, what we set out to do.

As I evolve, I hope my readers evolve, I hope my viewers evolve. And also, I think it's very important that whatever you're trying to make or sell, or teach has to be basically good. A bad product and you know what? You won't be here in ten years. You might be rich, you might be famous, but you're not going to be here in 10 years.

I live in the same house I've lived in for 25 years. I haven't gone off and bought mansions. Even though my subject is living, living in a mansion wouldn't do for my readers. I have to keep my credibility alive with my readers, so we're in the same place. I just make that place nicer and nicer. And that's a secret. People don't know that. People think, oh, she lives in this fabulous place, but it's the same old place. It started out like a farm, it got to be a farmette, then it got to be an estatelet. I built a wall; it helped a lot. But it's the same place, the same grounded nature.

What are the most important characteristics for success?

For me it's a dedication to your real interests. It's an ability to be open-minded. Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success. The great artists have been open-minded, even though they may seem, like Picasso, to be very directed, you can be directed and open-minded at the same time. I think you have to be really intensely serious about your work, but not so serious that you can't see the lightness that may also involve your life. You have to have that lightness too. You have to not be so heavy-handed and so ostentatious. It's very important not to be.

The subject matter that I am really spending my time on has become an acceptable subject matter. Living, lifestyle, family, is now in the forefront of interest in America, and I've just stuck with it. I mean, I've been doing this for years, and I never got angry. I never said, you know, listen, I'm fighting for this subject. That wasn't my point. My point was to continue working in a subject matter, knowing full well that finally it would be recognized as a viable subject once again.

I have a lot of energy. I have a great desire to absorb information. I'm not a sponge exactly, but I find that something I look at -- just walking around Williamsburg, for example -- is a great opportunity for ideas. I've been here before, I've seen things before, but now my eye gets keener and keener. So I can pick up little things: just the pattern of a brick walk, or the way they've attached a light to a house.

I catnap now and then, but I think while I nap, so it's not a waste of time.