Nick Candy

Sometimes our idea of luxuries are our client’s ideas of necessities. You might think having a helicopter pad in the back garden, 20 housekeepers and two tennis coaches is over the top. But for them it’s like you buying a sandwich.

I have had the top people in the world into One Hyde Park, and they have seen everything and they say there is nothing quite like this.

No one should buy on reputation alone. They should come and see it and inspect it, feel it and touch it.

My advice to budding property developers: do it on the cheap and you’ll get a cheap price. Don’t avoid putting in skirting just because it’s hidden by a sofa.

When you are in real estate, you are going to make some mistakes.

We started learning ourselves, understanding ourselves, reading, researching, going around the world and looking at what was defined as the very best.

There should be rivalry between men and between business.

Acquiring the habit of note-taking is therefore a wonderfully complementary skill to that of listening.

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

Clock watchers never seem to be having a good time.

Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.

I never trust an executive who tends to pass the buck. Nor would I want to deal with him as a customer or a supplier.

I’m not looking to be a personal manager.

My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

Nobody buys a farm based on whether they think it’s going to rain next year. They buy it because they think it’s a good investment over 10 or 20 years.

We’’ve designed swimming pools that turn into ballrooms, and fitted security devices that fill a garage with gas if someone is stealing your car.

My motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

Owning a great golf course gives you great power.

[On Laura Nyro] I said to Laura ‘You know Laura, I think we should sell your music publishing company. I think right now is the right time you have three songs in the top ten this may never happen again and I think we can get a lot of money for it.’ And I made a deal with Clive Davis to sell Tuna Fish Music for $4 million. And that was a hell of a lot of money in 1969. It made her famous, it made her rich. It got people to listen to her music with her singing.