Donald Trump

Do not spend too much time planning or trying to anticipate and solve problems before they happen. That is just another kind of excuse for procrastination. Until you start, you won’t know where the problems will occur. You won’t have the experience to solve them. Instead, get into action, and solve the problems as they arise.

Investors are visionaries in some respects – they look beyond the present.

When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.

I thought being President would be easier than my old life.

Anyone who thinks my story is anywhere near over is sadly mistaken.

[The New York Times] don’t write good. They have people over there, like Maggie Haberman and others, they don’t – they don’t write good. They don’t know how to write good.

Put it up for sale at an asking price of $25 million. I first looked at Mar-a-Lago while vacationing in Palm Beach in 1982. Almost immediately I put in a bid of $15 million, and it was promptly rejected. Over the next few years, the foundation signed contracts with several other buyers at higher prices than I’d offered, only to have them fall through before closing. Each time that happened, I put in another bid, but always at a lower sum than before. Finally, in late 1985, I put in a cash offer of $5 million, plus another $3 million for the furnishings in the house. Apparently, the foundation was tired of broken deals. They accepted my offer, and we closed one month later. The day the deal was announced, the Palm Beach Daily News ran a huge front-page story with the headline MAR-A-LAGO’S BARGAIN PRICE ROCKS COMMUNITY. Soon, several far more modest estates on property a fraction of Mar-a-Lago’s size sold for prices in excess of $18 million. I’ve been told that the furnishings in Mar-a-Lago alone are worth more than I paid for the house. It just goes to show that it pays to move quickly and decisively when the time is right.

I had worked for Warner Brothers most of my adult life, and I was totally enthralled by the world that this guy had created. So I bought the house. And I sold Warner Brothers all the scripts, the Oscars, the mementoes for $3 million, which they’re going to use for a museum. I sold some of the rest of the stuff for $7 million. And I kept millions of dollars of furniture and silver. So I was really paying about $34 million for prime Beverly Hills property.

I’m passionate about real estate and that’s what works for me.

The penthouse doesn’t have immediate conveniences that you would expect, but it’s a work of art and a crown jewel in the city. That was the intention, and who else could do that but Axel Vervoordt?