Roman Abramovich

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

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

[on money] It cannot buy you happiness. Some independence, yes.

In my personal opinion, Russia is no less democratic than it used to be. It is a democratic country. It is democratic enough.

I love this game, I love this sport, I love this league. Why don’t I get my own team?

I have no Napoleonic dream. I’m just hard-working and pragmatic.

There is no failure except failure to serve one’s purpose.

It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most.

My motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades.

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.

Your business, and your brand, must first let people know what you care about, and that you care about them.

If I had to think where I could live if not Moscow, London would be my first choice and second would be New York.

I quickly figured out [that] the one ability I’d better have is to create relationships.

It took only 10 minutes to do Chelsea deal with Roman Abramovich but I had to Google him first … I wasn’t sure if Jeremy Beadle was going to jump out.

[On Calvin Klein asking him ‘Why don’t you call it Geffen Records?’] People in the record business just don’t do that. They come up with names likes Asylum, Capricorn, or Island. [Calvin Klein said if you put your own name on the door ‘You’ll get laid more.’]

I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world.

I don’t know the rules of grammar. If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

The keystone of successful business is cooperation. Friction retards progress.

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.

I just think people have a lot of fiction. But, you know, I mean, the real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.