Kerry Stokes Quotations

Ethics or simple honesty is the building blocks upon which our whole society is based, and business is a part of our society, and it's integral to the practice of being able to conduct business, that you have a set of honest standards. And it's much easier to do business with someone when you look them in the eye and say, "This is what we're going to do," and you understand what you each mean, and you can go away and get it done.

You can choose a direction that will take you into something that isn't going to take you where you want to go, or you can choose another direction which is down the right pathway.

I have a fear of public speaking. It's very hard work. Words are not my skill, and because they're not my skill, I have to work doubly hard.

If you have a difficult marriage, it's the hard times that make it better. If you have a relationship, it's the hard times that actually make it better, and that goes for life as well.

I have always been comfortable that no one has been able to assess what I really have.

I know about photography - I'm really good at it.

I love Perth. It is my home, and no matter where I am in the world, Perth is where my heart is.

I'm lucky I had signposts in my life. At important times, I got pointed in the right direction by particular circumstances.

I've been very lucky because Perth has been very good to me. I've enjoyed my journey and met so many wonderful people.

With WesTrac, you have real people doing real jobs with real problems and real opportunities, and you touch the metal, and it's like being grounded.

You can be involved in media, and you can be involved in all the handbag hurling that goes along with it, and it's a different world.

At one stage, I didn't have any money, so I slept on the streets for a few nights. It wasn't uncommon in the 1950s, and it wasn't uncommon to be out of money. There wasn't anywhere to go to get money.

Every father loves their children. I love my two sons very dearly. The only thing that is important to me is that they do what they want to do. They shouldn't feel a sense of obligation.

I am a pretty tough nut, I guess, and I love art as one of the expressions that probably appeals to my softer side that a lot of people would deny I had.

I don't wish hardship on anybody. My background was one of being very difficult, very hard, and they were subject to the times I lived in. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

I ended up in Broadmeadows orphanage - I don't know how that happened - whether she gave me up for adoption or the church was responsible. Whatever happened, she was a single mum.

I haven't got a problem with scrutiny. If it gets hot in the kitchen, don't cook a meal. People should be able to criticise us - it's completely appropriate.

I just decided that I wasn't going to gain anything by going to school, since we couldn't afford it anyway, so I left school very early and went to work and progressively did things.

If you have a difficult message to deliver in any circumstance, it's always best to do it first up-front, and probably be a bit harder than you have to be because it's always easier to be nicer afterwards.

Our balance sheet provides us with the ability to act on investment opportunities in appropriate areas that diversify and broaden our portfolio, including the gas and energy sector.

We are pleased to be back in football.

Yes, I may well have done, yes, I did.

Frankly, if you can sell something at $80 a tonne that cost you $20 a tonne, you might want to sell as much as you can.

I resent that, ... I resent that. There was never any legal action or anything ever asserted in that manner.

It depends on your point of view, yes.

Unfortunately if you want to protect your interests there is sometimes no other way of doing business with Telstra.

Due to economic conditions in our region, we felt that our capital could be much better employed in Australia,

At the end of the day, anybody who thinks there's a reward for nothing, ends up losing.

If we actually love what we're doing and we go and do what we love, and every day we get up because we're really happy to get up and go and do what we do, you can't actually do that without expression, and art forms part of that mix of expression that makes the whole package of life so enjoyable to be in.

The only way of making money is for effort. The only time I've ever lost money is when I've purposely said, "I'm doing this to make money." And I've actually on three occasions lost significant sums. I have made wealth when I've actually made a contribution to something, when I've done something I thought I could do better than somebody else or have done something better than somebody else does it.

The most important adage and the only adage is, the customer comes first, whatever the business, the customer comes first.