Top 40 Quotes & Sayings by Philip Green

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.

Nobody can be a clairvoyant.

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

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.

I think I pick more winners than losers.

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

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

I am brave, but I take a view. It is an educated view. I am careful. I am not reckless.

I think everybody, from every end of the market place, from young through to old, wants to be fashionable. Everybody. Women want to feel like they're wearing the right merchandise, regardless of age. They want to be trendy.

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.

I wasn't a good school pupil. I was interested in business.

You are forced to have the best data capture, the best information, when you have goods in hundreds of factories around the world, and the question is: 'Where is everything?' And how do you bring it all together?

If I say I'm going to do something, I do it.

You're going to find England, unfortunately, is a place where you get a lot of jealous, envious, you know, negative people. That's how it is.

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

There is no reason why government should not be as efficient as any good business.

When I've had a talk with someone, I like them to leave unconfused. No need for contention.

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

I used to leave my house at 6:30 in the morning, and I would visit 10 shops every Saturday, starting at the furthest shop I'd decided to go to that day, ending up in Oxford Street 12 hours later.

It's not my style to blame anybody else.

I don't regret anything I haven't done.

I could spend my life having meetings, a meeting to have another meeting, a hundred meetings to have another thousand meetings. It's not what I'm about. I don't want to have to get in a queue; that's not how I like to live.

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.

I hope and believe all the people that worked very closely with me at BHS for all those years, and some for the whole journey, will know it was never my intention for the business to have the ending it did.

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.

On what possible basis would I want to stop someone from buying BHS if I had tried to save it?

I think I've got a good feel. A feel for... being able to walk with different people. Or for being able to look at people and think, 'Yeah, I might know what they want to wear.'

It's all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.

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

When I am driving my car down the street, I try not to go down the potholes.

I'm in the retail business, not the circus business.

I have a very clear conscience.

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.

I think we'll say flat is the new growth in the short term.

You've got to be a believer in what you do.

New West End Company ensures that there is a body that can put significant investment into the West End, targeted directly to the needs of the area and particularly the customers. Great progress is being made to improve Oxford Street and make it a great destination.

Whenever I have faced a setback I have dusted myself down and got on with the rest of my life because I believed in myself.

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