Kenneth Lay Quotes

But indeed a market like California is not good for Enron.

But the most important thing is, Enron did not cause the California crisis.

In the case of Enron, we balance our positions all the time.

The collapse of Enron and the subsequent collapse of Arthur Andersen were tremendous tragedies. But as I stated at the time of my indictment on July 8, 2004, failure does not equate to a crime.

I take responsibility for what happened at Enron, both good and bad. But I cannot take responsibility for criminal conduct that I was unaware of.

I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well.

But I can't take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.

I threw my whole life and lived my life in a certain way to make sure that I would never violate any law.. certainly never any criminal laws.. and always maintained that most important to me was my integrity, was my character, were my values.

Aggressive accounting does not mean illegal accounting.

I've not only pursued the American dream, I've achieved it. I suppose we could say the last few years, I've also achieved the American nightmare.

The last thing I would have ever expected to happen to me in my life would be that, in fact, I would be accused of doing something wrong and maybe even something criminal.

I don't fear jail because I know I'm not guilty. I know I did nothing wrong. I did nothing criminal and I also believe my God will get me through this.

There are no accounting issues, no trading issues, no reserve issues, no previously unknown problem issues.

They can't do without electricity. They can do with less electricity.

If there is anything material and we're not reporting it, we'll be breaking the law. We don't break the law.

Investors don't like uncertainty.

Jeff knew full well what he was walking away from. Again, he needed to deal with this right away.

But certainly I didn't know he was doing anything that was criminal.

We see ourselves as first helping to open up markets to competition.

Am I a fool? I don't think I'm a fool. But I think I sure was fooled.

I always took my role as a leader, and certainly chairman and CEO of a major company very seriously as to our employees and trying to create opportunities for them and create opportunities where they could even, as I said many times, could realize their God-given potential and maybe realize more potential than even they realize they had.

We're (also) looking for a good people person who is able to motivate others and get strong performances out of people.

Every market is in transition.

Trillions of dollars every day are being exchanged around the world in all of the financial markets.

I don't think I'm a criminal, number one.

You'd rather have a surplus versus a shortage in your position.

Well, rates would go up whether you deregulate or not, and of course, the rates that are going up right now on the electricity side are still within the regulated framework.

There are absolutely no problems that had anything to do with Jeff's departure.

We use competitive markets to arrange for delivery of our food supply.

It's been very interesting. We've seen a lot of interesting testimony. We've seen a lot of interesting people, a lot of allegations, a lot of lies, a lot of misinformation and some truth.

I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses.

The transmission systems are still regulated.

When there's uncertainty they always think there's another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall.

We will cooperate fully with the SEC and look forward to the opportunity to put any concern about these transactions to rest.

Today, there are also buyers and sellers of all these energy commodities, just like there are buyers and sellers of food commodities and many other commodities.

I've been a strong financial and political supporter of, first, President Bush Sr. when he was running for president, and even when he ran for president a time or two and failed.

I have faith in the market when we get the rules right.

The problems in California have been that it's been very difficult to site and build new power plants.