Quotes from Vidal Sassoon

I was a bit of a rebel.

My greatest regret is selling my company.

Hairdressing in general hasn't been given the kudos it deserves. It's not recognised by enough people as a worthy craft.

Realizing our society as it is, without theology dogmatically telling us how we should react to it, and being humane toward that society, that is all that we're sure of.

I'm a great jazz fan.

A working woman could save a few shillings a week, and then every five weeks she'd come in and we'd cut her hair. She could shampoo it under the shower, swing it and dry it off or just let it dry by itself. It changed the lives of many young girls who'd never had the opportunity to be styled like that before.

Judaism is important to me from a tribal point of view.

It's hard to give advice. There are so many people, how do you give major advice to a group of people, it's very presumptuous.

It's okay saying sorry, but when you are drunk you say what you really feel.

Hair is another name for sex.

Capri on the Amalfi Coast in Italy is my ultimate holiday destination.

I was born in 1928 and by 1931 the Depression was beginning to mount.

Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn't have time to sit under the dryer.

Hairdressers are a wonderful breed. You work one-on-one with another human being and the object is to make them feel so much better and to look at themselves with a twinkle in their eye.

If someone were to ask me, 'What's the number one thing, in essence, that you left behind?'... it was the teaching of others, so that they could take my work and take it further.

Most people have excellent necks. Now they cover them with curtains, which is kind of ridiculous. But there are some beautiful necklines that you can cut into and create wonderful backs, as well as bone structure for the face.

My mother left me for seven years in an orphanage.

To sculpt a head of hair with scissors is an art form. It's in pursuit of art.

For nine years I worked to change what was hairdressing then into a geometric art form with color, perm without setting which had never been done before.

You never argued with my mother. You couldn't win.

From my point of view, there is a tremendous amount to be said for secular humanism.

The only place where success comes before work is a dictionary.

I'll never forget one morning I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise - it had been a difficult night the night before - and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' And I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin.'

So I was shampooing at 14. But I've always thought that had I the opportunity for an education, I would have been an architect. There's no question about it.