I would not get to know every single thing that happens in Sports Direct.
— Mike Ashley
The media circus surrounding Sports Direct... only proves that whatever progress Sports Direct makes, it will always be subject to disproportionate scrutiny and misrepresentation.
Sports Direct is on course to become the 'Selfridges of sport' by migrating to a new generation of stores.
I accept House of Fraser cannot have 500,000 square feet in Birmingham. Honestly, you would need an Uber to take you round. It's ridiculous.
On a scale out of five, with one being very bad and five being very good, House of Fraser is a one.
It is very boring and lonely in Shirebrook. You know what we do after work? We go to the pub after work.
It is true that I have conducted and do conduct business discussions in an informal environment form time to time. However I don't just turn up to a venue with someone and negotiate a binding agreement over few hours over drinks.
It's not my fault the high street is dying... It's very very simple, the Internet is killing the high street.
People will say 'how can you have a plane when your workers are on minimum wage?' I said 'but I don't set the minimum wage.' If the minimum wage would be the living wage, then the Government who set the rules should set it at the living wage. That's how I look at it.
Alan Shearer came in at a time when he was one of the only people on this planet who could have kept Newcastle up and he did a fantastic job in everything else but the odd result not going his way.
I do fly to work by helicopter. It's a reality.
I am hopeful for the Newcastle fans, for the club, for everybody that I will be able to step aside and we will be able to get an owner in that will please everybody.
I am wedded to Newcastle like Sports Direct. They've got me and I've got them. That's just the way it is.
Criticism is a funny thing, because I think if you want to be something, create something or make a difference in any walk of life you have to be hugely self-critical.
I don't care what people say, it's very difficult to keep a player when they want to go. The age of slavery is dead.
I'm not the thickest person on the planet.
Once you start to spiral a company down, you lose the momentum.
It is blatantly apparent that true entrepreneurs will never be accepted in the public arena.
If you're trying to portray that I take massive business decisions in pubs and bars, then that is total crap. It is not the norm, otherwise I'd have to live in a pub because I take business decisions all day, every day.
What person could keep 59 stores open - beside God? It's impossible, it can't be done.
In Harrods you get some exceptional services.
Sports Direct should come with a government health warning - this stock is not for the fainthearted.
I take business decisions all day every day, from home, from the bath.
I'm not Father Christmas, I'm actually a very fair guy.
I'm not a clicks man, I wasn't born in the clicks era. I'm a bricks man, I believe in bricks.
Kevin Keegan is an outstanding individual and also did his best. It wasn't always easy for Kevin at the football club. We didn't have the structure around that we should have had to support him. I will take responsibility for that.
You get to the top of one mountain and then you see another.
Corbyn is not only a liar but clueless.
Do I regret getting into football? The answer is yes. I have had tonnes of fun in it but I haven't been able to make the difference I wanted to like I have at Sports Direct.
I was a little bit shocked at quite how football was more like the wild west.
The over-riding reality is that I am just not wealthy enough to own Newcastle.
Despite significant challenges within the retail sector in the UK and beyond, which have resulted in many retailers failing, Sports Direct has continued to perform well and exceed market expectations.
I will go to the ends of the earth to save as many Debenhams stores and jobs as I can, similar to the promise I made with regards to House of Fraser.
I'm not this crazy capitalist everybody thinks I am.
I'm not sitting in my office stroking a white cat... I find it very frustrating: what benefit have I got of closing stores?
What we would like to do is introduce a 'concierge click and collect' at House of Fraser. When you go online and say you want to collect goods in-store, you should be able to book a time, book a changing room and book a stylist.
Honestly, I am fat enough. I don't need any more food.
I periodically lose my phone, damage my phone, have my phone stolen - what ever happens to mobile phones happens to me.
I don't get paid a salary, but I do like to go by private plane because it saves a lot of time and is very efficient.
We think the biggest and most important thing House of Fraser is missing is luxury brands.
I didn't know Alan Pardew before football at all.
I like to get drunk, I'm a power drinker.
I wanted to help Newcastle, I wanted to make it better. I do not seem to have had that effect.
You can say to me I'm wealthy, in theory I'm a billionaire or a multi-billionaire, but in reality my wealth is in Sports Direct shares, which are the same as wallpaper, I don't have that cash in the bank, so I don't have that ability to write a cheque for #200m, I don't have that, it's very simple, it's not there.
The school I went to was only famous for one thing... Peter Osgood went to that particular school. That's probably my earliest memory of the importance of football.
It's one of the amazing things about owning a football club, the way you get caught up. It's like someone has put something in your coffee. You look around, you want to lift the place, hit the ground running.
