It's all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.

I'm in the retail business, not the circus business.

You've got to love what you do to really make things happen.

I could have closed down bits of British Home Stores to make more money but it's not my style. I want to make my money as a retailer, not by putting people out of work.

Whenever I have faced a setback I have dusted myself down and got on with the rest of my life because I believed in myself.

People are always going to go shopping. A lot of our effort is just: 'How do we make the retail experience a great one?

I am brave, but I take a view. It is an educated view. I am careful. I am not reckless.

You've got to be a believer in what you do.

I don't like department stores. I had a chain of department stores back in 1994 which was Lewis's and Owen Owen, only for a short time, and I found department stores personally difficult.

I think we'll say flat is the new growth in the short term.

I think I pick more winners than losers.

Complaining is truly my strongest weakness.

Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night Of fevers unto truth and light.

Awakening to the truth is a deep realization of what you are as an experience. What is it that is listening? What is it that is feeling? Feel it. Sense it. Welcome it.

What person, confined in a small room with nothing but a tea-cosy, will not eventually put the tea-cosy on their head?

No man can have a reasonable opinion of women until he has long lost interest in hair-restorers.

You should go," I breathed. "You should definitely go." "Go here?" His mouth was on my shoulder. "Or here?" It moved up my neck.

Do not let it look as if you reasoned too much. Painting must be impulsive to be worth while.

History repeats itself because nobody listens the first time.

Don't waste your time striving for perfection; instead, strive for excellence - doing your best.

We were in negotiations, but then the Japanese side suspended them unilaterally. Now, at the request of our Japanese partners, we have reopened these talks.