Quotes from Theo Paphitis

My family's challenges meant we lived hand to mouth. There were weeks when we had neither electricity nor heating.

Both my sons are dyslexic, and so, too, in a much milder form, is one of my daughters.

The reality in business and in 'Dragons' Den' is you win some, and you lose some.

Wherever I go in the world, I put aside several days to go visit the stores.

I try to support local traders. The service makes up for any extra cost.

Without hope, the very fabric of our society will fall apart.

The high streets I remember best were Seven Sisters Road in north London and then sunny Peckham in south London after we moved there. They were where my parents used to shop. They were great, part of being a teenager.

If you really want to sort out the High Street, you ask someone like Kate Swann at WHSmith, who has done a fantastic job of running profitable shops.

Entrepreneurship can be taught to people with average academic abilities - the proof of that is everywhere you look.

I love the English language, but I'm crap at it, so I might as well do what I'm good at. The same goes for my kids, who are also dyslexic. I won't pressure them to do anything. They've each got a trust and a mortgage-free property, which is a lot more than I had, so I know they will always be fine.

I'm a traditionalist, a family man. I love my kids. I believe I have brought them up the right way. They are all very different: they have different drives, different ambitions. They are never going to be me. They are going to be themselves.

What makes business exciting is that you don't need a fancy degree, and anyone can do it.

Women have to work harder to be in the same position as a fella because they often have to balance work with running a family.

The decisions you make when you leave school define the rest of your life. So, in terms of making the right choices for your financial security as you get older, my best advice is to do something you have an interest in and are passionate about, as you'll be working for a long time.

The wider the exposure that we give children of the real working world, the better.

I am for a transactional tax at the point of purchase for both online and physical retail.

I'm a shopaholic. I really am. I can't help myself. I do go into, browse, and purchase from my own shops, too, although the CEOs who run my businesses wish I didn't.

In Cyprus, our house was right on the beach. I could walk out of our front door, cross a road, and there was the sea.

I was useless in the classroom; I would spend my time looking out of the window after the first 10 minutes. But when you do an apprenticeship, you don't have to wait for the teacher to tell you when it's time to start, because you are on the shop floor learning for real.

Stack the cards in your favour, and in a casino, you'll get arrested and put in prison, but in business and in life, it's the right thing to do.

What the entrepreneur gets on 'Dragons' Den' is direct access to people with masses of experience who can actually make quick decisions.

Souvenirs always tend to look great when you see them in some exotic souk but awful when you finally get them back home. They tend to start in my study and eventually get demoted to the garage or the loft.

Good businesses will survive good times and bad times.

You can have a worldwide shop from your bedroom. You can do things that weren't even dreamed of when I started off in business. It's why technology is the most wonderful thing for small businesses.