I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it's not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that's not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.
When you get into this business you have to grow up quickly. But I wouldn't say I've lost any of my childhood, I've always been a mature child. My Mom says I've been like that since I was little kid. I make time for my friends and I make time for things that other kids do. This is a business and I knew what I was getting into. I make time for being a kid, but I also know when to put on my business hat and go for the business.
Sometimes film is just the family business. Some families are generations of carpenters or farmers, or they make clothes, or they're all lawyers. I'm in the family business.
What they don't realize is that I'm not in the business to make clothes. I'm not in the business to make more money for myself, for Christ's sake. This is the reason Patagonia exists - to put into action the recommendations I read about in books to avoid environmental collapse. That's the reason I'm in business - to try to clean up our own act, and try to influence other companies to do the right thing, and try to influence our customers to do the right thing. So we're not going to change.
The business of America is business, but it's about high-integrity business. It's about a business where you keep your word, where you make square deals.
Clothes don't make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and face during business hours, and that's a pretty considerable area of the human animal.
I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.
The business of a label is to make money - my business is to make music. I'm gonna get paid if I do it right.
I tell people all of the time that they would make any show in this business - whether it's black, white, Hispanic, Jewish, Colombian, Dominican - whatever. They'll make it if it sells. It's a business. It's not personal.
In the fashion world, you have to make clothes to sell. You have to make clothes for the press. You have to make clothes for yourself. What I mean is, everything is an obligation. But a writer? A pure artist? Maybe he doesn't make one lira - but he does what he wants.
You of the West are practical in business, practical in great inventions, but we of the East are practical in religion. You make commerce your business; we make religion our business.
For a long time, the film business was a single-digit business on investment return. Now, because of home video, it's a low double-digit business, and the studios want to make sure it doesn't go back into the single-digit business.
The idea was not to make a huge business, because the bigger you get, the more restraints I thought I might get. Number one was to do what I set out to do: make new and interesting things within the size of the business that is possible to do without restraints. The second goal was to do the business in order to achieve the first goal. That's what many people don't understand.
The first thing I heard when I got in the business - not from my mentor - was, 'Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered.' I'm here to tell you I was a pig. And I strongly believe the only way to make long-term returns in our business that are superior is by being a pig.
My on-set, keep-warm jacket is a Patagonia, and they make sure the people who make their clothes are paid fairly, along with a load of other great stuff and initiatives. They're a business, but they put their money where their mouth is in terms of caring and responsibility.
Businesses can lead with their values and make money, too. You don't have to simply be purely profit-driven. You can integrate social and environmental concerns into a business, be a caring business, be a generous business and still do very well financially.