YouSaid · the spoken record

Nate Berkus

lines on the record
49
first
2017-09-25
most recent
2017-09-25
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Absolutely, and he touched them. He touched each one. I walked past it. And of course, it's sometimes it's subconscious, sometimes it's very conscious. But I think to myself, I was loved that way.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “His soul, they represent his heart, they represent his essence as a person and the fact that he wanted me to have them not one, which I had asked for, but both, was just a level of generosity that I don't think comes around a lot.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “So we were leaving for that trip. The trip he never came home from, and I walked into the apartment and he had had delivered both not just one of the woven trees, but two. And he had hung them in the entryway of my apartment and taken down the paintings that were there and put them where he wanted them to go. And I of course didn't think about that after the tsunami, but when I came home. Was the first thing that I noticed, and it represented everything, really. It represented everything. It represented what he's willing to do. That he would do it, that he would do it in that way that he couldn't be coerced into doing it, but in his heart he wanted to do it anyway, and that's really who he was. So they're the most meaningful things to me that I have. They represent”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “How dare you? How dare you ask me for that? So I said, you know what? Then I want nothing. If you want to ask me, I'll tell you the truth, and that's the truth. What do you think I want? A sweater? I don't want a sweater. I want that. So if you have all these 10,000 reasons why I shouldn't have that, then keep them, and that's fine.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “He had created this series of 10 photographs that were woven by hand, he wove them by hand. They're five feet by six feet tall. And they're hand-woven, cut into millimeters wide strips that he handwove with a tweezer. And he asked me what I wanted for Christmas that year, and I said, what I want is one of your woven photographs. They were being represented at a gallery in New York. And he went insane. He started yelling at me and how could I ask for that? And they were selling for so much money. And he would never have sold them if he didn't need to. And he wishes he would never have to sell any, but he's not rich. And I had a lot of nerve and I'm a terrible person and this and that and going on and on and on.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “However, if it's because you saw it on the cover of a magazine or you saw it on a TV makeover show and somebody told you this is the newest, hottest thing. Then the answer is no. And you need to take the space you need to make authentic decisions for what you allow into your home.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So, we're taught that you're not supposed to care about things, you're not supposed to admit it because we're supposed to care about people and we're supposed to first. And I believe in that. But I think we have to care about things because they do represent us and they do hold memories. So what people need to do is stop and take a beat before they acquire. And this will actually solve a lot of issues that people have, I think. Before you acquire. Before you buy that sofa or that table or that lamp or that mirror or fill your bookshelves with books you've not read, whatever it is, before you do it, you need to stop and ask yourself the question, is this really serving me in my home? Is this telling the story of who I am? Does this represent what matters to me? And if it doesn't, you can like something just because it's pretty.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So, when our homes really do reflect who we are and who we aspire to be, that's when you have a space that everyone is drawn to. And what's interesting about that is that the best design projects that have ever been shown or seen or photographed are always the ones where the people broke the rules. They weren't listening to what anyone else had to say.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I think that's why when you were in Montecito, you spent so much time outside. I think that's why the trees mattered so much too. That's why my favorite space.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “That is why when I walk into an interior that somebody's hired a decorator or they've brought they've done based on what they saw on TV or in a magazine or whatever it is, it doesn't matter really to me ever how much money someone spent. But when I walk into a space and it doesn't reflect the people that live there, it's not a good job And I've always thought a home has to reflect the people that live there, tell the stories of who they are. And it's not instant. It should be assembled and layered over time.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And I went into therapy and I started to work on a lot of issues that I had never really addressed before. My childhood, why I make certain decisions, why it was important for me to be on TV, why I wanted this so badly, and where I was now.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “But everything ends for a reason, and I really also felt that surprising to me to get deep for a moment was that a lot happened when that show ended. My relationship of three years ended personally, I needed to get back in shape. I needed to kind of get control of myself again in many different ways. And I went into therapy for the first time since the tsunami. And it was interesting because my friends, my close friends said to me, You're so breezy about this show ending and the stuff in the news and you're fine and you knew it wasn't right and you're ready to move on and you don't even care that you don't know what moving on means. You're just ready to be done. And you're so breezy about it. And I was. I was really, I was concerned for my staff. I was concerned for some of my friends that worked on the show.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “It taught me that I really do need to stop and take the time before I make a major decision like that, and that I have to really decide for myself why I'm doing something.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, I didn't know how to function. I mean, conversely, I met wonderful people. Some of my producers will be friends of mine for life. It's like summer camp. You're in the trench camp. So it's not about blaming people.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I realized I actually, oh well, probably to be perfectly honest, I realized that the second week we were in development of the show. And so basically for two years, I was unrecognizable to myself. And I think that came through on camera because everyone is very smart. And when they see somebody doing something that they're not really meant to be doing or trying to sort of fake it until you make it, that who wants to watch that? I don't even want to watch it.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “It would have been amazing for me to do that, and maybe I will, but that for me was like that moment where I thought, I'm not that guy.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I felt overwhelmed. I felt exhausted. I gained 20 pounds. I felt unhealthy. I felt like there was no way I could do a good job. And then I realized that very quickly that I should have done a show that was one day a week at most. Then I should.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Absolutely. And the truth was for me is that I am a person that likes to have space around the decisions that I make even for the makeovers. When I was doing the makeovers on the Oprah Winfrey show, they were spaced out about every six weeks apart. So if something didn't come in right, I had the time to make that change. With the show every day, I lost sight of what was important and what mattered to me because”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “I'm ambitious. And I felt that that was an opportunity of a lifetime. And everyone around me told me it was an opportunity of a lifetime, and the truth is, it was. It was. It was an enormous opportunity of a lifetime.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “But, you know, it's funny for me because I'm 41 years old and everyone else seems to think my life has been so accelerated and I look back on it and it didn't move that fast. I feel like I've always been the type of person that likes to have space around the decisions that I make. And that's why my talk show didn't work for me. I didn't have an idea of I felt too rushed.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “It was powerful and it was scary to start my own company at 23 years old. I had to also Know myself, I guess, as well as I thought I could at that stage of my life”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Who is working their own company, who had the freedom to leave on a Thursday night and take a drive to Michigan or do whatever they wanted to do? And that felt like it needed to be something that I had as well, that freedom to actually create and design my own world and my own timeline was something that I knew. That was the single thing that propelled me to start my design firm.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I think so. I let things find me. I let moments find me. I let objects find me. I let beauty find me in any of its forms. And that could be walking along a flea market and finding something on a table that everyone else has overlooked. But for me, there's beauty. Inherent in the actual object.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “It's one of the best things you've ever written. Absolutely. She just wrote to me that she had always sensed something special in me. And that she always felt that I would go on to do great things, whatever those things might have been, and that we all define greatness in different ways. But for her, she knew that I would have a life that was filled with joy because I was kind. And that makes me well up because I think that”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Cheryl Storm. This looked different to me. Mrs. Storm was like always trying with something. A scarf sort of floating on her shoulder or a hat at an angle. And she really cared so much about us. And she said to me, I don't want you to just speak French. I want your personality to come through in another language. And when your personality comes through, that's how you know that you speak. Oh, that's a good teacher. That's such a good teacher. It's a great teacher.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Strong women have always been behind me in some way. I can trace it back from my grandmother to my mother to my French teacher in high school. Yep, to Leslie, to you, obviously. But there's always been that role. There's always been that role for me, like angels guiding me.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “A real relationship. That was the moment. That was really the moment because then I knew that if I had his base level of respect, That I can move forward.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “And he said, Nate, the importance you're placing on this issue is here and the importance I place on this issue is here. I do love you. I do respect you. I do admire you. If you say that you were born this way and you didn't make a choice, then we're good.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “And he said yes. And I said, Dad, why would I choose to make my life more difficult? Why would anyone choose to make their life more difficult? The truth of the matter is that being gay is the way that I was born. I believe this to the core of my being. I would never choose something to make my life complicated. I said, Dad, we're never going to have a relationship, a real relationship unless you believe me. And I know that you believe me and act accordingly. I said, Dad, do you think I would change you?”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Did you know? I felt it. I felt it. I felt it. I felt it. I felt everything that I had ever been through in my life kind of rushed to me in that moment to give me the voice that I needed to say to him, Dad, do you trust me? Do you respect me? I'm your oldest son. Do you respect me in business? Do you see the decisions that I've made? Do you see how I was listening at the dinner table growing up? Do you see that I have chosen to have some of your qualities and discarded other ones? Do you respect me? And he said yes. And I said, do you think I'm smart?”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “I was 24. And I thought, wait, what does he mean? And when it occurred to me that he thought that he would get a phone call that I had killed myself because it's a very empty, lonely life. And how could we possibly attain any happiness? Had a moment where I thought to myself either I'm going to stand up and walk away from how little this man knows me. Or I'm going to dive in and really make my case for him to know me forever.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “So his flight was delayed. We went across the street to the hotel bar and we sat down and each ordered a drink. And I asked him how he was. And he said he was fine. And then he asked me how I was because he and my stepmother were worried. That they would get a call someday that I had done something to myself. And I had started my design firm. I was living with my boyfriend in Chicago. How'd you?”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Exactly. Why would you choose this? You could be with any woman. You can have such an amazing life. And I remember after several years of not being close to him, always being connected for holidays and things like that, but never really having a conversation with him after I came out. He was in Chicago visiting me and I took him to the airport.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “He, unlike my mom, didn't have any gay people around him. He really didn't understand the lifestyle, and the most important thing that happened between my father and I when I came out was that he for years chose to believe it was a choice that I was making. And I remember”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Yeah, you have to lie You feel that you have to lie so that you're not cast out so that your parents don't cast you out. And the things that you learn to do socially with friends on the school bus, in class, in school, at recess, with your family, how you have to pretend that you like a girl or that you're dating someone. I was eight years old, nine years old when I became conscious of the fact that I was gay. And I had to develop a whole skill set around hiding that. And it's taken me almost all of my adult life to rid myself of those. Because I got pretty good at it. Really?”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Absolutely, give them the time to let go of that dream. But make it safe for them in the process. And coming out from me was, you know, what happens is when you're a kid and you know that you're gay. You develop a skill set that makes you dishonest. If you think about that, you're trying to try.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Absolutely. Yeah, all that stuff. And deal with whatever you need to deal with. And your child, I believe, should respect that. Give them the space to mourn, to grieve the life they thought you were going to have.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Exactly No, I didn't think my mother knew. I was very lucky to have a family that was supportive of me. My mother said to me, I love you, but I need time to deal with this and process this, which is the most I can ask for any other young person coming out”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Yeah, that was all happening. But then when I was able to get still and really hear what he was saying. I believed him because he showed me. And that was really a huge turning point for me.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “It really is. I had to still myself because first he was telling me that he knew. So there was a lot of noise in that conversation for me because there was a lot of terror. You know, you know, you know.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “So, the beautiful thing, this is a good man, my stepfather, Dr. Marshall Golden. He wanted me to know, he understood instinctually that I would be afraid that no one would love me if I came out. And that I would be cast out by my family. So though he had discovered that I was gay in the beginning of the summer, he waited three months to tell me that he had made that discovery. And the reason is that he wanted to show me, not tell me, that his behavior to me hadn't changed. He said, I wanted you to know that when you did something that annoyed me this summer, I yelled at you. And when you did something great this summer, I praised you. But I knew this whole time. So there's your proof. I don't feel any differently about you now than I did before I found this out about you.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “I mean, the joy is indescribable. But, you know, you take that as a 13-year-old boy who grew up around design. I spent the weekends going to flea markets and yard sales and estate sales and things like that with my mom. And how I am the person that I am today, I can trace directly back to those feelings because it's the same rush.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “It really does. But I watched the process. And I was the kid that ran home from school to see if the sink had been installed or if the tile had gone in or if the You know, cabinets were coming in, or my desk weren't you happiest when”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Really matters And I think it's universal. I think no matter who we are or what we have or we don't have, everybody wants to live better. I think cross-culturally, I've seen it myself with my own eyes, and I've been impacted by it. And you've told a story on the show many years of being in Africa. Remember the woman who had tacked up the little piece of fabric?”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “That wasn't the point, it was the selection, it was the process, it was watching a space that was raw concrete walls in a basement be transformed into a space where I could live out my daily life.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “It really was. So I was the kid that cared so much about the things around me, cared so much about the way things looked, but more importantly the way things felt, that I was tortured by sharing a bedroom with my younger brother. And for me, it was my own space. And my mother knew that I don't think she knew that I would end up working in design. I don't think she knew that I would end up being on your show. I don't think that anyone predicts or tries to or dreams for that. But what she did know was that her son was the kind of person. That had to control the way a space felt and the way a space looked, and that I would get great pleasure out of not just the privacy”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “That's fascinating. Isn't that fascinating That's a really interesting statement, isn't it? Yeah, I've never thought about that before”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “The point of the book for me It was, you know, a lot of people have asked me over the years is design a spiritual endeavor. And I've always believed that it was. I've never really had the language to describe why I felt that way until I sat down to do this book.”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “I remember tweeting that I'm going to get it and pay for it myself. And you did, by the way. And I did for that. Thank you”

    2017-09-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Nate Berkus: Design for Your Spirit · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source