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.

It was impossible to operate in the aluminium business without krysha – very real physical protection.

I’m getting excited before every single game. The trophy at the end is less important than the process itself.

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

I’ve never tried to impose pressure on the authority of the government through my business achievements. I cannot tell you what the others were doing.

Our strategy [at Chelsea] is to bring up our own players through the academy, which we have invested a lot in, and hope it gives results.

If I had asked them what they had wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

We do not hire a man’s history, we hire the man.

I have had the top people in the world into One Hyde Park, and they have seen everything and they say there is nothing quite like this.

We know everything about our clients – if they like their dressing gowns heated, what colour flowers they like, if their chef works left-handed – we know everything and we incorporate it into our work for them.

A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member’s talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service.

Our modern industrialism, changed to motives of public service, will provide means to remove every injustice that gives soil for prejudice.

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

Burdening people with debt is an old deal not a new deal.

When most people ask about a business growing, what they really mean is growing revenue, not just growing the number of people using a service. Traditional businesses would view people using your service that you don’t make money from as a cost.

The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning; to create a product or service to make the world a better place.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.

…capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.