Chris Rea Quotes

I never 'went Hollywood.' Perhaps some of my behavior was detrimental to my career, but I couldn't go the route of Hollywood parties.

It's the way the business works, you're not just an actor, you're a diplomat and a publicist and a politician, and there are certain expectations.

I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords.

We have to spend a lot more time training people to be good advocates of U.S. business.

Politics as battle has given way to politics as spectacle.

In politics you learn to always smile.

I'm a CEO of a public company. You have to show decorum.

I won't be making any friends in the corporate suites.

You have to promote yourself; you have to have this smile on your face all the time and be this nice guy - which I am!

Any image I have, it's just what I do, but it comes off as being very pretentious. When you're a bit in the public astigmatism, anything you do seems like you did it so somebody would see you do it, like showing up at the right parties.

You can always tell folks from nonfolks. Folks like to feel good, like to smile for the camera when there's a big photo opportunity for a really good cause.

The vice-president of an advertising agency is a bit of executive fungus that forms on a desk that has been exposed to conference.

If I went to them all dressed up and flashed a nice smile for the cameras it would probably be easier for me to get work. But I just can't tolerate it.

I will have my publicist pull pictures of the way I look at events so I can see, 'Oh, that cut is not as flattering as I thought,' or 'I should smile bigger,' or 'That positioning is odd.' I learn from it.

You must not believe your own PR; it would be grotesque.

I don't believe in a lot of schmoozing and buttering up. Not that you don't become friends in work. But I think it's a misconception that you have to do a lot of hanging before you work.

Boxing is a small world where the same thing that goes on, goes on in corporate America.

The ridiculous way that workplace politics are conducted completely gets in the way of excellence in America.

If you make believe that ten guys in pin-striped suits are back in a kindergarten class playing with building blocks, you'll get a rough picture of what life in a corporation is like.

Meanwhile, the empty forms of social behavior survive inappropriately in business situations. We all know that when a business sends its customers 'friendly reminders,' it really means business.

I'm out talking about this company (General Electric) seven days a week, 24 hours a day, with nothing to hide. We're a 130-year-old company that has a great record of high-quality leadership and a culture of integrity.

What does it say about a president's policies when he has to use a cartoon character rather than real people to justify his record?

Business is a cobweb of human relationships

In public affairs men are often better pleased that the truth, though known to everybody, should be wrapped up under a decent cover than if it were exposed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world.

Even in Kitty Kelley's book, which is so negative, they talk about, as with all first ladies, that Nancy Reagan is constantly around to take photo ops with kids.