Margaret Heffernan Quotes

I'm the hardest person to buy a gift for.

There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they're easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves.

Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.

I'm pretty good at surprising friends and family with gifts. I tend to go towards the more sentimental side of giving.

To save money on gifts, give someone their favorite candy in a beautiful, customized vessel with a personalized tag. It's sweet and always appreciated.

Practical gifts are another great way to be thoughtful, and they work for anything from birthdays to dinner-party gifts.

The question on my husband's birthday is always, What do you get for the man who has nothing?

I just bought a great gift for my boss - a leaky ant farm.

I love all the gift guides that the magazines put out, whether it's 'InStyle' doing Mother's Day gifts or color guides, or the 'O' magazine Christmas guide.

The best gifts are those we not only cherish but put to use.

Why are cancer patients so hard to buy for? This question always puzzles me. When people are healthy, things are so simple, including gift buying. A jaunt to the local mall or a day in front of the TV watching QVC can be just enough for all the loved ones on your list.

I love seeing people's reactions to gifts that I've created from my line, such as my gold horn ring, bottle openers, my 'Fallen' leather jacket and my Slither black and white sweater.

Every year, I looked forward to Oprah Winfrey's Favorite Things episode. I watched with my notebook computer in my lap so I could Google the items and order them for the friends and family on my holiday gift-giving list.

I don't over-gift. I don't inundate my child with a lot of things.

Holiday shopping is a challenge. Stores are crowded; people are stressed and rude... not exactly the spirit of the season.

It's a ridiculously expensive time of year and if you buy something that you've guessed at and it's not right, what a waste of money. Far better to ask. And if you do it with three or four weeks to go, by the time it comes to Christmas you've forgotten about it - so it's a lovely surprise.

If you're struggling for gift ideas, my advice is to give experiences rather than things.

Make gifts meaningful by putting the time in creating them, whether baking and cooking, or in making arts and craft. It will all have more meaning for the giver and receiver.

We get some great gifts. Trophies, very funny things, one woman even made a diorama of us sitting recording the podcast.

I like to look for gifts throughout the year. If I find the perfect item for someone, I put it in my "gift closet" and keep it for the next holiday. But I often get too excited and just give it to them before!

I bought an ideal gift for my mother-in-law - a battery-operated mouth.

When confronted with a birthday in a week I will remember that a book can be a really good present, too.

I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious possibilities. I mean the advertisement. It is far easier to write ten passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public.

It is advertising that enthrones the customer as king. This infuriates the socialist...[it is] the crossing of the boundary between West Berlin and East Berlin. It is Checkpoint Charlie, or rather Checkpoint Douglas, the transition from the world of choice and freedom to the world of drab, standard uniformity.

Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.