"It was my mother's idea. Her feeling was that I didn't have the intelligence to pick a trade myself."

"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.'"

"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."

"I came home after a year and although my profession was only hairdressing, I knew I could change it."

"The pay is good and I can walk to work."

"We are infected by our own misunderstanding of how our own minds work."

"It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses."

"I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"