George Pelecanos Quotes

My father's whole life was work. He had a retail store in Ossining, New York, and I mean, he was down there at 6:15 every morning. The store didn't open until 9, but he hadda be down there. That's all he knew.

My parents were immigrants who started a nursery as a way to get us kids through school. I learned around the dinner table about customer service and cash flow and paying bills.

I started my first business when I was 19. I learned a valuable lesson as a small business owner. You are the first one to work, last one to leave, and last one to be paid.

My dream is to have a small company in France.

I'd watch my father get up at 5 o'clock and go down to the Eastern Market in Detroit to do the shopping for his restaurant, and get that business going and then go out on his vending machine business.

My parents were entrepreneurs. They ran a small ad agency in upstate New York.

I'd watch my parents work and think, 'Yeah, I'm going to do that.' It wasn't even a thing. It's the only thing I know how to do.

People don't know how hard it is to have your own business.

It's important my daughters learn from the hard work my wife and I put into this company. Who better to look out for your best interests than family?

My father ran a corner drug store where he worked night and day, seven days a week, until he died of a stroke. He literally worked himself to death.

My parents grew that small business from one 18-year-old guarding a bingo to more than 125 employees in three states. And sure, there was help along the way. But my parents took the risk. They stood up. And you better believe they built it.

I've taken the leap of faith to stop punching the company time clock and start working for myself. I'm now the CEO of Starfish Media Group, my production company, in New York City.

I spent my entire childhood with my father. I started my first business at 16, and we became business partners. He's not just a mentor and somebody that I look up to, but he's also someone whom I took work ethic and determination and all of those qualities from.

My dad owned a propane company in Oklahoma.

My mother had gotten a job as a receptionist at a dancing school and had the idea that we should open our own dancing school; we did, and it prospered.

I am excited to rise today to support National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day. This celebration honors the husband and wife business owner teams whose work helps drive the economy and fuel job growth.

My dad started his business, No Limit, for himself.

My mother was a very wonderful woman. When she and my dad divorced, she moved to California and worked two jobs in the cannery at night and as a waitress during the day. But she saved enough money to establish a restaurant.

I opened up a frozen-yogurt business out of college. I didn't finish college; I went halfway, and then I worked for Joel Silver, the producer, as a driver for a year.

I never really thought I'd have the opportunity to run this business. It's an industry I grew up in. I watched EDS being formed in our living room at night.

Trespass, the outdoor clothing company based in the South Side, is run by two of the nicest guys and proudest Glaswegians you could meet, Afzal and Akmal Khushi.

When I was 11 years old, my family had to leave East Germany and begin a new life in West Germany overnight. Until my father could get back into his original profession as a government employee, my parents operated a small laundry business in our little town. I became the laundry delivery boy.

Pizza made me who I am. In the summer of 1998, I dropped out of college and started a pizza restaurant called Growlies in my hometown in rural Canada. My seed money: a credit card with a $20,000 limit.

My father was a carpenter, a very good carpenter. He also worked for the Jones boys. They were not family members, we weren't related at all. They started the policy racket in Chicago, and they had the five and dime store.

My first job was working for my dad. He was a used-car dealer, and I used to wash the cars down, clean them out, and so on. I would do stuff for him pretty much every day. It was quite a good job, to be honest.