Philip Green

“I am a positive thinker. You have to have this positive energy to get somewhere.”

“If you go 90 yards in a hundred-yard race, you come last. Usain Bolt slows down for the last half a yard, but for 99 yards, he is that far ahead that he can. In our business, you can't be far enough ahead. It is such a competitive marketplace.”

“I don't think there's anyone who can be unaware of the relevance of Kate Moss, the effect that she's had on the fashion industry.”

“I was never going to be a scholar.”

“Arcadia was a typical venture capital deal, but I'm the adventurer and the capitalist.”

“Good, bad or indifferent, if you are not investing in new technology, you are going to be left behind.”

“Stand in my lobby at 5:30 P.M., and there is no one who gets out of the lift who is not on a gadget. No one is talking to each other. I get in the lift and say, 'Hello,' and everyone's head is down tapping on a screen.”

“I don't like department stores. I had a chain of department stores back in 1994 which was Lewis's and Owen Owen, only for a short time, and I found department stores personally difficult.”

“I sometimes think less is more. If you cut yourself in too many places, it is hard to execute.”

“They already know all about brands... but what 16- and 17-year-olds won't necessarily have is experience of the world of work. The more that businesses get involved with schools, the better, because businesses sometimes complain that students don't have what they require to succeed in work.”

“Nobody can be a clairvoyant.”

“People are always going to go shopping. A lot of our effort is just: 'How do we make the retail experience a great one?'”

“I could have closed down bits of British Home Stores to make more money but it's not my style. I want to make my money as a retailer, not by putting people out of work.”

“It is about attention to detail and then the minutest detail on top of that. I am an owner, and yet I'll argue about the sign on the wall.”

“You've got to love what you do to really make things happen.”