Alan Sugar

Lord Alan Michael Sugar is a British businessman. Sugar has starred in the BBC TV series, The Apprentice. This has had 5 series, which aired in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Sourced

• Pan Am takes good care of you. Marks & Spencer loves you. Securicor cares. I.B.M. says the customer is king. At Amstrad, we want your money!
  • Quoted in the New York Times, September 28, 1987, from an earlier public speech.

• If there was a market in mass-produced portable nuclear weapons, we'd market them, too.
  • Quoted in the New York Times, September 28, 1987, from an earlier public speech.http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/26/business/amstrad-plots-a-us-invasion.html?pagewanted=all

• My history of lending money from banks is that they want to know the ins and outs of the backside of a duck.
  • In interview with Gordon Brown at No 10 Downing Street, as stated in The Sun (UK) newspaper, 11th December 2009

• I don’t believe in God and all that. But I am Jewish, and very proud to be so, very proud of the culture.
  • From an interview with Sam Wollaston in The Guardian, 25th March 2009

• I came from an environment where I needed to succeed. There was no wealth or anything like that in the family. Not that we were paupers, but we had to fend for ourselves. Kids today are not as hungry as I was. They don’t understand how tough my generation was.
  • From an interview with Jan Moir, Daily Mail, 25th March 2009

• If you take care of your character, your reputation will take care of itself.
  • From, The Apprentice, BBC television, 3rd June 2009

Unsourced

• I thought the runway was longer than that! (When Sir Alan overshot the runway at Manchester City airfield)

• Fair? The only fair you're gonna get is your bloody train fare!

• I don't think too many people would want my job. I'm a bit of a nutter.

• I just don't know whether you're some sort of bloody nutter.

• I've got a gut feeling in my stomach.

• I've written books on advertising... Cheque books.

• Once you decide to work for yourself, you never go back to work for somebody else.

• Never ever try to under-estimate me because you will be making a fatal, fatal error. I don't like liars, I don't like cheats. I don't like bullshitters, I don't like schmoozers, I don't like arse-lickers.

• The money coming into the game [football] is incredible. But it is just the prune-juice effect – it comes in and goes out straight away. Agents run the game.

• There's only room for one bigmouth in my organisation, and that's me.

• You seem to have gone from anchor to wanker.

• Tell me, why shouldn't I fire you?

• You're fired.

• That's why my fee for this ad is going to Great Ormond Street.

• I like Premium Bonds.

• I'm no gambler.

• Business is not about coming in, pissing my money up the wall and saying 'Oh well, I have learnt from my mistakes and it won't happen in the future'.

• I'm Jewish and I couldn't give a toss. – On being told by a Catholic that "you have my word"

• You're a lightweight, you're fired!

• Quite frankly, I'd like to get rid of the bleeding three of you!

• This is not a game, this is a 12 week job interview. It's a dog eat dog situation.

• There is no phone-in here, there is no text a number, there is no panel of judges. I'm the one who decides who gets fired, and I'm the one that ultimately decides who gets hired.

• I am the most belligerent person that you could come across.

• You're hired!

• When you lose, there won't be some busty blonde outside, for you to sob into her bosom.

• If they were a company, the shareholders could sue them for incompetent mismanagement. In commercial terms, it's like watching your mother-in-law drive your new Ferrari over the cliff.

• If ever there was a time for me to leap across the boardroom table and whack someone on the conk, it would have been then. – On Kevin Shaw's final boardroom

Series 1

• When it comes to bullshit, they [advertising agencies] have forgotten what you haven't already learnt about all this crap! (To Paul Torrosi before Rachel is fired.)

Series 2

• But I've sat here four times, and there is a message coming from above....not that I am a believer in the Lord or anything.... (Immediately before Jo Cameron's firing.)

• Syed, SHUT UP! (Sir Alan Sugar speaking to Syed Ahmed.)

• But you were in the restaurant business before?? Marco-Pierre White or something....The Titanic – well here's another bloody disaster you're in now! (To Syed before Alexa is fired.)

• I tell you what, if any of you survive here, I promise you this: As sure as I have a hole in my bloody arse, when it gets down to the two of you, all these people who are saying nice things about you at the moment, will not! So start thinking about yourself!

Series 3

• Your back's against the wall and you're almost done for – it's Dunkirk all over again! (The Apprentice (To Paul, the ex-army Lieutenant before he is fired.))

Series 4

• You didn't like it when you got a B in your French exam. You're not gonna like it now, because you've got the big F – you're fired! (Firing Nicholas de Lacy-Brown in episode 1.)

• OK, because if you're unsure, you can always pull your trousers down and we can check. (On whether or not Michael Sophacles is Jewish.)

• Sian Lloyd – what was she doing there? Why did you cast and pay for a kind of celebrity for your advert? You know, I could understand if your advert was based on weather, I could understand if your advert was based on her being upset because her boyfriend blew her out for a cheeky girl, right and she's crying, but I can't understand this. She's not even a mother, what's the point? (Episode 9)

• We've got two very despondent gentlemen, we've got Claire, she will get her 500 rounds of bullshit out and stick it in her AK47 and deafen us all in here. (Episode 9)