Kirk Kerkorian Quotes
100 Kirk Kerkorian Quotes
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[To Jerry York] Jerry, I’d like you to write down what it would take to recruit you to join Tracinda.
Kirk Kerkorian
I thought they were with us. It wasn’t supposed to be hostile.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On being told that he was the single largest private shareholder of the Airbus system meaning that he can’t fly a Boeing] You mean that? So I have to buy an Airbus now? I have to go home and tell my friends.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On Lee Iacocca comparing Kirk Kerkorian to Howard Hughes] That no good son of a bitch. Why would you compare me with him?
Kirk Kerkorian
[To Khashoggi on Daimler-Benz being the perfect industrial partner in his bid for Chrysler] I’ve been thinking about Daimler-Benz, the German company that makes Mercedes.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On Chrysler] We’re going to make an offer for the company. We’re coming out at fifty-five dollars a share tomorrow morning… We’re going to have a press release on it.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On contributing $14 million during the energy crisis in 1993 and 1994] I just want to help Armenia in any way I can. It’s a wonderful country; they’re wonderful people.
Kirk Kerkorian
[In court on his divorce with Lisa (Bonder) Kerkorian] She told me she would make me pay for what I had done.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On how he would like to be remembered] It doesn’t even cross my mind really. I came here with my parents as an immigrant and just worked hard. I don’t really dwell on those kinds of things.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On the most important characteristics to be successful in business and in life?] Well that’s a pretty tough one to just answer short because really all I can say is what has worked for me. I’ve always worked hard. I’ve dealt very honestly with people and it’s up to everybody with their own intelligence to work things out. I’ve been pretty lucky.
Kirk Kerkorian
I’ve been in a lot of different businesses. My main business that got me started was airplanes. I became a licensed pilot so when the war broke out I was already a professional pilot. And I flew for the U.S. Air Force with the RAF (Royal Air Force) and they paid me big money for those years to take airplanes and fly them across the North Atlantic, which wasn’t flyable.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On one in four pilots dying flying the route he did during World War II]Yeah, something like that.
Kirk Kerkorian
After the war I bought myself an airplane. I had $10,000 to my name, a car, no home, a wife and that’s all I had. I was 28 years old so I took the airplane and flew charters to Las Vegas and from there I got interested in the hotel business. I built a hotel. It was called the International; and then I built Caesars. I’ve built a number of hotels since then. And now we are building a place called CityCenter which has never been done. And I’m very excited about it!
Kirk Kerkorian
[On flying being his first love] Absolutely!
Kirk Kerkorian
Everything went really fast for me. All my life it’s been that way. I learned to fly, and after I learned to fly I started teaching people how to fly. Then I started teaching instructors how to teach others how to fly. And I did that for the U.S. Air Force. So then I went and got a job with the British flying airplanes over the Atlantic at a very important time during the war. And after that I started hotels in Vegas, bought movie studios.
Kirk Kerkorian
I stopped flying a while back. I used to fly my own private airplane. My mind is too occupied to be a pilot anymore.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On what inspires him to stay motivated] Something drives me I guess. I enjoy being busy and I enjoy moving.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On playing tennis] I play on weekends. I like to stay busy and I stay in pretty good shape.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On the message he wants to send to young entrepreneurs and young Armenians] You know, I have been asked that one question so many times and it’s very hard for me to answer that because, first of all I’m basically a really shy guy. I don’t like to get up and say if you do this or that you’ll make it. I am shy and I don’t say much about how to be successful; I could be wrong. I don’t want to tell anybody wrong things.
Kirk Kerkorian
I guess I know what I want and the other side knows what they want and you put your cards on the table. Fortunately I’ve been successful at almost every area I went into. Probably a lot of luck. I don’t claim to have any mystique at all. I’ve been lucky and I work hard.
Kirk Kerkorian
My mother and father came as Armenian immigrants. They were married, they were on this boat, 19 years old from Armenia and I figure America has really been good to us. I like to give back. You know I believe we have given over a 100 million dollars and I am happy to be doing it.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On Armenian politics] I don’t get involved in great depth because I don’t think I would be helpful.
Kirk Kerkorian
[In 2010 on the GFC and future of American business] I hate to think of it as demise. I’d like to think we are in a stalled position and that we will come out of it. Especially since we are growing in the middle of it. We have a vision! We’re building this particular hotel and urban center called CityCenter which has never been done before and we are continuing our progress. We will open December 16 of this year. And I think we’ll do alright.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On whether he was investing as well outside of the United States in 2010] Yes we have, in Macau, in Singapore. And in Malaysia I believe we are getting close. We’ve done something in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi…we are building a hotel.
Kirk Kerkorian
It’s hard investing outside of your country. It is for us, anyway.
Kirk Kerkorian
Tracinda is our investment company and Lincy is strictly to pass the money out wherever we can help. I think we have given a few 100 million towards Armenia.
Kirk Kerkorian
You know, I was born here [In the United States] but when I first went to school here I couldn’t speak English because we only spoke Armenian at home. So when I hit the streets at four or five years old I didn’t know English. But I tell you one thing, there’s never been a minute of my life that I wasn’t proud to say ‘I’m Armenian’. I’m most proud of that. I’m pretty lucky and I have accomplished a lot.
Kirk Kerkorian
I'm far from being reclusive, I have 30- or 40-year friendships that I prefer to meeting new people. I go to an occasional party, but just because I don't go to a lot of events, and I'm not out in public all the time doesn't mean I'm anti-social or a recluse. I'm at a restaurant three or four nights a week, here or in Las Vegas.
Kirk Kerkorian
Our first language, although we were born here [In the US], was Armenian. We didn't learn the English language until we hit the streets.
Kirk Kerkorian
When you're a self-made man you start very early in life. In my case it was at 9 years old when I started bringing income into the family. You get a drive that's a little different, maybe a little stronger, than somebody who inherited.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On asking Florence ‘Pancho’ Barnes a pioneer female aviator at her Happy Bottom Ranch] I haven't got any money. I haven't got any education. I want to learn to fly. I don't know how I can do it. Can you help me?
Kirk Kerkorian
I heard about the Royal Air Force flying out of Montreal, Canada, and I went up there and I got hired right away. They were paying money I couldn't believe, $1,000 a trip.
Kirk Kerkorian
[On spending $5,000 for a single engine Cessna to train pilots in] I used that same plane to fly charters. That's what got me into the transportation end of the business
Kirk Kerkorian
[In 1962 on purchasing 80 acres for $960,000 that was cut off from the strip] It was landlocked. We traded the owners four or five acres for all of this thin strip that they could never build on. Then I got a call from Jay Sarno, and that's how Caesars Palace got started.
Kirk Kerkorian
I'm not a firm believer, that you have to have 30 years of experience, if you've got good, common sense. I knew he could cut the mustard and he did. He helped, no, he built the International. He built the old MGM and he built this MGM. It was all Fred Benninger.
Kirk Kerkorian
I can't take much credit except for seeing the big picture; the amount of rooms, what kind of showrooms, I'm into that part of it. But when you get the nitty-gritty, I don't have the education to really get in there and dissect it.
Kirk Kerkorian
We had the same doomsday people when we were building the MGM Grand, same people, same doomsday.
Kirk Kerkorian
You have to ask a lot of questions and listen to people, but eventually, you have to go by your own instincts.
Kirk Kerkorian
How could I walk away while that whole team was out there, taking the brunt from everybody? I had to be a part of it, I couldn't walk away, I just couldn't.
[In 1999] Personally, I wouldn't say it's headed for a fall, except that there will be a leveling-out time, and the best hotels and the best operators are going to suffer less than the others.
Kirk Kerkorian
[In 1996 on MGM] People call me a raper and a pillager, and that’s not how I want to be thought of.
Kirk Kerkorian
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