Quotes from John Caudwell

I really do feel guilty that I don't visit me mum enough.

In the early days, I had everything to prove. A very working class lad with a burning ambition. A very crude way of measuring success is how much you are worth.

People are much more important than superficial environments.

I saw that e-mail was insidiously invading Phones 4u, so I banned it immediately.

When my back's to the wall, I want to fight.

I make no apology for wanting to make a profit - the more I make, the bigger percentage will go to charity. So most of the work I do now is motivated by that.

My second business would have succeeded but for competitors' jealousy. I was selling motorbike gear cheap, but the people I was undercutting complained to the manufacturer and cut off my supply. It showed me how corrupt business can be. When I sold phones, the same thing happened, but this time I was ready.

I believe in workers rights when people are doing a good job. If somebody needs support I am always there, but if they're taking the piss, I am hard on them.

I don't like paying too much for anything or wasting it. I think that I'm more of a balanced individual rather than a dichotomy.

Sometimes your worst competitors are the ones which are dying because they do stupid things.

There are lots of brownfield sites in Stoke, but they are not suitable for building executive homes. It needs to be surrounded by fields. It needs to be on greenbelt land. That's what executives want.

Journalists like to say I started off sweeping the pottery floors. But it was just a short-lived part time job doing that after I left school.

My philosophy is very much to encourage my children to forge their own success and happiness, even though that will undoubtedly involve much more modest levels of wealth creation.

I decided to leave most of my wealth to my charitable foundation, which is not to be confused with my charity. My charity helps children directly. The charitable foundation will receive most of my legacy when I die.

I'm a wealth creator. I'm not interested in saving in the least. While I do spend a lot, I don't spend money like other billionaires. I'm probably quite unusual, albeit I do have some of the significant trappings. But I always try to make my assets work for a living.

Those of us who have yet to find philanthropy may find there is a far greater reward from it than from wealth creation.

Taxes aren't the way to go. They'd strangle the economy; you wouldn't create the wealth. And nothing squanders money as well as a government. What we need is to encourage rich people to give.

Knowing that my ancestry had all been quite wealthy and owned their own businesses probably left me with the ambition to replicate what they'd done.

Before I really even understood what the term meant, I wanted to be wealthy. I wanted to be able to drive the beautiful old Rolls-Royces my father admired when I was a child.

If I died tomorrow, I would regret growing so wealthy and still running the business when there are so many more people I could have helped.

I couldn't even contemplate anyone even making a film about my life!

Really good customer service will deliver sales. You are training salesmen to give the best possible advice and then to achieve the sale. People actually like you to ask for a sale because it shows you value their business.

I do not put my tastes as incredibly expensive, but they are incredibly expensive for an average man.

My objective is to leave my family adequately catered for, but I want my children to make their own way. I want them to have pride in their own achievements.