Chuck Feeney Quotes
118 Chuck Feeney Quotes
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[To a former customer of his in the sandwich business Jeffrey Cornish Mahlstedt] I said we are going to make our first million, so Jeffrey said, ‘I’m game!’
Chuck Feeney
This bill would be a terrible injustice, and would take away the booze from all these military guys who were sticking their ass out for everybody.
Chuck Feeney
[It’s elimination] will brutally terminate an entire industry.
Chuck Feeney
[On having moments of despair when starting] Of course. It goes with the territory. But there wasn’t much we could do. It was something we had started, and we thought we were going to make a million dollars out of it. We had not choice but to salvage the company or go over the cliff.
Chuck Feeney
[On being behind the DFS tiny service counter with the girls when the Japanese planes were due with all being required to speak Japanese] I used to stand in the middle of the girls and line them up like last night’s game when they were ready to take a free kick.
Chuck Feeney
[On being so squeezed in so tight behind the tiny DFS service counter he would joke to the others] Don’t put on any weight.
Chuck Feeney
[On the Japanese tourists in the DFS store in March 23, 1966] Business is booming along here.
Chuck Feeney
[On watch companies saying that DFS wasn’t a place that could sell watches of their quality. They were] Very tough operators.
Chuck Feeney
[On selling Camus Cognac through DFS] We had the worldwide rights, we set the price, and we sold to ourselves.
Chuck Feeney
[On his relationship with Michel Camus and the trust Michel had in him] It was the start of a wonderful relationship and one of the great strokes of fortune we had.
Chuck Feeney
The travel agents would work with anybody who gave them a kickback, and they realized after a while we were the best game in town. They made more commission from us. To this day still do. They might make $1 a head for bringing people to a restaurant for lunch, but when it came to us they made serious money.
Chuck Feeney
We were using the carrot of the liquor and tobacco to bring them in to buy watches.
Chuck Feeney
[On the salesgirls in the DFS stores working fifteen hours a day, seven days a week and their husbands complaining and saying] ‘Hell, I don’t see my wife any more, the kids don’t see their mothers any more, you know, when will it stop?’ [Chuck pleaded] Please be patient.
Chuck Feeney
[On the DFS owners agreeing to take 90 percent of the dividends in cash, something that continued for 25 years] We didn’t want the cash to build up in the company, so from the time that DFS worked, we did nothing but distribute the money out in dividends.
Chuck Feeney
[To John Monteiro in 1969] I hope you don’t mind but the company really need you in Alaska, not in Hawaii.
Chuck Feeney
Paris is a city of a million stores, and the Japanese travel agents were growing more and more sophisticated as they grew older, and so they were getting paid off in cash. The biggest mistake was simply not realizing that the tour escorts would finesse us. We reached the conclusion that this was madness. So we eventually closed the store.
Chuck Feeney
[On him investigating building a DFS store in the Phillipines during the Marcos era] Imelda Marcos was trying to line up a partnership in which we did everything, put the money up, ran the shops, took all the risk, while she was supposed to get kickbacks. When the world ‘corruption’ came up, we ran.
Chuck Feeney
[On Guam having the potential to become Japan’s Miami Beach before the Japanese started coming] I realized this was a place we wanted to be. It was a natural destination. It was like Hong Kong: The only taxes were on liquor and tobacco. So we could open up a store and sell products other than liquor and tobacco. It was a no-brainer.
Chuck Feeney
[On being asked if he was rich at this point in his life] How much is rich? Beyond all expectations. Beyond all deserving, so to speak. I just reached the conclusion with myself that money, buying boats and all the trimmings, didn’t appeal to me.
Chuck Feeney
[On being frustrated that he was not controlling the destiny of the company he had co-founded and built up] I frankly wanted out, for one because I said if I am going to do things, I am not going to do them as I did before where I do all the work, and people pick up their share of the action.
Chuck Feeney
[On him investing in a $12 million commercial complex in Tahiti which had a concession to have a duty-free store specializing in French perfumes.] This was peanut stuff…
Chuck Feeney
[On collapsing near the end of the 26 mile Honolulu marathon] I’m a bad loser.
Chuck Feeney
[On his first act of giving in the 1960s when asked by his former professor of the hotel school who asked for $1,000 but him instead giving $10,000] I wanted to make a gift that was meaningful, and I reckoned $10,000 was meaningful.
Chuck Feeney
[On Harvey Dale an attorney who advised him mostly on tax issues] If you were to ask me who is smarter, Harvey or myself, that’s a dumb question. It’s Harvey. He is a brilliant lawyer with a mind like a machine.
Chuck Feeney
[On Andrew Carnegie’s essay on philanthropy] I do remember somebody gave me a copy of a speech that Carnegie had given at Cornell, and for some reason I researched that speech and read two books on Carnegie.
Chuck Feeney
[On setting up the Davney Fund his first charitable venture which he put $1 million into it in the first year] Davney was my first real attempt at putting something back.
Chuck Feeney
[On providing money for the four children of a fireman who had looked out for him whilst he was in the military and who died of a heart attack] I want to make sure all those children are educated.
Chuck Feeney
[On evaluating bid prices for duty-free concessions] 210,000 passengers times $302 with inflation, growth of passengers this, growth of spending this…
Chuck Feeney
[On duty-free concession bids] I used to bless the bids.
Chuck Feeney
[On Host International ambushing the DFS owners by bidding $246 million for a concession outbidding DFS by $81 million] They were very crafty. They were really irritated they had lost before, and they decided to go very quietly, and this time around there was no notice, and we didn’t detect that there was anyone out there bidding. [Host International needed one-third of the Japanese market to break even, but they didn’t even get one-sixth. The store was closed within nine months of opening with losses of $25 million.]
Chuck Feeney
Call me Chuck.
Chuck Feeney
In Hawaii they used to call us yoku bari, which means ‘the greedy ones,’ because we were always trying to close down any type of opportunity that came up.
Chuck Feeney
out of Cornell you have got good baggage. When you say ‘Cornell University,’ everybody knows it’s a damn good university, and the Hotel School is the best in the world.
Chuck Feeney
[On Harvey Dale being the most influential person in his life] Yes absolutely, He is impeccably honest and is also a good person as a human being. He knew my motivations. The idea never changed in my mind – use your wealth to help people, use your wealth to create institutions to help people. I think he has the same pragmatic view that I have.
Chuck Feeney
[On questions about DFS financial returns] I would like to answer this question but I am bound not to.
Chuck Feeney
Let’s do it!
Chuck Feeney
I like funky buildings.
Chuck Feeney
What’s the best university in the United States? [‘Stanford? Yale? Harvard?] No, it’s Cornell.
Chuck Feeney
The worst thing to do was lose.
Chuck Feeney
Giving while living.
Chuck Feeney
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