Quotes from Lapo Elkann

I have never let down Italy, and I never will. I love my country, and I owe a lot to my country, and in that sense, whatever I can and will be able to do for my country, I will do.

The Cinquecento was an engine of motivation at Fiat. It refurbished the image of the entire company. It's a symbol for the company, but it's more than that. It's a global Italian symbol, as Mini is a global British symbol and the Beetle is a global German symbol.

I have many weaknesses, but I have one strength. When I do something, I do it 300 percent. I'm not a middle man.

I need to make things mine. It annoys me to buy something that is imposed on me. When I have a suit made, I go to the Sicilian tailor Alessandro Martorana in Turin. I like shorter jacket sleeves and often fold the cuffs up. It's more modern that way.

I love Winston Churchill. I love the wisdom he had, the sagacity. I like people who are independent-minded. People who aren't part of clans or systems, who are talented and free, and able to do things without being corrupted by the system.

I do not follow the rules of fashion, and I don't like to be considered a man of the world of fashion. I like to call it the 'style industry' because we try to work on taste.

You can learn from everyone, the president or the cleaner. You need teachers in life, but they're not always school teachers or professors. You learn from ordinary people. You learn from travel, from just walking down the street.

Just because you're born in a privileged family and have money doesn't mean you're happy. Happiness you can't buy. Happiness is something you need to work for.

Tailor Made will help Ferrari's clients tailor their cars in a very personal, specific way. It's a bespoke service, like visiting Huntsman or Anderson & Sheppard or whoever your favourite Savile Row tailor is.

London is the financial capital of Europe, a great platform to America and Asia. I love the fact that in British culture you can be whoever you want, and people don't even look at you. I don't feel that in Paris or Milan.

A pocket square must always - always - be white and a bit wild. If it is too prepared, it is tacky.

London is like a girlfriend I loved, then really fell out with.

I like my country, but I don't think like an Italian. It's a complex, complicated difficult country to make things happen in.

I love Winston Churchill; I think he had the grace of coming and the grace of leaving - when things were hard he was there, and when it was time to leave, he left.

My company Independent Ideas worked with Gucci on a special edition Fiat 500.

I'm inspired every day by the great captains of industry and enlightened entrepreneurs like my great-great-grandfather and founder of Fiat, Giovanni Agnelli, who personally knew all his workers and gave so much to this country, or Adriano Olivetti, unique and innovative in every way.

In America, if you succeed, you don't have to apologize. In Italy, success is envied, and envy is the worst, worst, worst thing in the world. It's easy for me to say because I have had more than many others, but at the end of the day, I have never envied anyone. I wish to no one that they waste their time envying anyone else.

'Made in Italy' is from the tycoons of the '80s, not me. It is people who represent an Italy which I don't belong to and I don't feel a part of.

I am in love with cars; I love anything that moves.

I love Italy and I say I am from Italy wherever I go.

Tiles, the best furniture, fabrics, bath fixtures, bronze - just leaf through any design magazine and you immediately understand they're all 'Made in Italy.' We have the premier opera house in the world, La Scala, and behind the Nobel given to CERN is the research of many Italians.

I don't have an MBA, and I didn't go to Yale. I'm not an academic person and wasn't a good student. Instead, I've been taught by some of the most inspiring people in the world.

I'd say Juventus has a story as legendary as the Yankees.

I've missed a lot of trains in my life, and another one always comes.