Roman Abramovich

Money plays an important role in football but it is not the dominating factor. When Chelsea play a Carling Cup game in a small city and it could result in a draw – the excitement, the spirit, the atmosphere – that’s the real beauty of football in England.

My feeling would be that you lose something of the beauty of the Premiership by joining something not defined at the moment.

I myself never make any notes. Usually, if I write something down, I can’t read it afterwards.

I was never involved in arms trading. In the Russian Federation, arms trading is the prerogative of the state.

I never aspired to be a public figure. I have always been interested primarily in real business and the development of business strategies.

I never made any public statements, at least I tried never to make any public statements. I know I don’t do it well, I become very nervous, I forget what it is that I mean to say, I can’t really convey my logic and my thought to the journalists, so I decided this is not my thing, I really shouldn’t be doing it.

Nations are great as they are prosperous as they are industrious as they are just.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.

Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.

Our friendship was based on my payouts. That wasn’t a friendship when – as, for example, it’s me, my friends, we are friends for many years, and it doesn’t matter for me what the position is, where they work; we simply are friends. And with Mr. Berezovsky, our friendship was based on my payoffs.

It’s true we’ve got some fantastic clients. We’re very fortunate to be connected with the movers and shakers of all the global cities of the world. You can usually tell when we’ve got a client in here because their bodyguards are all over the place: two outside the front door, two in the lobby, one in the lift…

Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.

If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.

Should I give up my career at this point in my life… and put all my marbles in Laura’s [Nyro] basket?

The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.

What America needs most is aviation.

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

I think everybody thought I was crazy that I quit my job and started a management company in which I was managing one client – Laura Nyro.