T. Boone Pickens Quotes

Chief executives, who themselves own few shares of their companies, have no more feeling for the average stockholder than they do for baboons in Africa.

A plan without action is not a plan. It's a speech.

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome'. You must be willing to fire.

A Fool with a Plan is better off than a Genius without a Plan!

The older I get, the more I see a straight path where I want to go. If you're going to hunt elephants, don't get off the trail for a rabbit.

Try everything. Do everything. Nuclear. Biomass. Coal. Solar. You name it. I support them all.

I don't go cheap on anything, but I'm not a shopper. If I want something, I look at it, decide what it is, but it will usually be the best product. I've got a pair of loafers that I still wear that I got in 1957.

Work eight hours and sleep eight hours, and make sure that they are not the same eight hours.

When you blow away the foam, you get down to the real stuff.

You want to compete, and you want to compete at the highest level.

It has become cheaper to look for oil on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than in the ground.

On a scale from 1-10, my ambition is probably 11 or 12.

Work hard. Come early, stay late. That's the way leadership has to approach it.

Keep things informal. Talking is the natural way to do business. Writing is great for keeping records and putting down details, but talk generates ideas. Great things come from out luncheon meetings which consist of a sandwich, a cup of soup, and a good idea or two. No martinis.

Given the current state of our finances, we could sure use a quarter of a trillion dollars a year recycling through the U.S. economy rather than through the economies of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.

Fundamentals make the market.

For decades, our dependence on OPEC oil has dictated our national security decisions and tied us up in the Middle East at an incredible price. We've spent more than $5 trillion and thousands of American soldiers have died securing Middle East oil.

A fool with a plan can outsmart a genius with no plan.

Money is to be respected one of the worst things you can do is handle another person's money without respect for how hard it was to earn.

I've always believed that it's important to show a new look periodically. Predictability can lead to failure.

To me, emails are a little bit frustrating. I think that the telephone is much preferred because you get the sound of the voice and the interest and everything else you can't see in an email.

In the history of America, we've never had an energy plan. We don't even realize the resources that we have available to us.

I do believe that oil production globally has peaked at 85 million barrels. And I've been very vocal about it. And what happens? The demand continues to rise. The only way you can possibly kill demand is with price. So the price of oil, gasoline, has to go up to kill the demand. Otherwise, keep the price down, the demand rises.

I'm a Republican. I don't want to go to heaven and have to face my family up there and tell them I voted for a Democrat.

A dollar is not worth as much as you think it is. Your honesty is worth much more.

When you look at a commodities market you need hedgers and speculators. If you don't have one, you don't have a market. That's how it works.

I'm focused on energy only. And I know what I'm talking about. And I don't want to be distracted on other things.

Natural gas is the best transportation fuel. It's better than gasoline or diesel. It's cleaner, it's cheaper, and it's domestic. Natural gas is 97 percent domestic fuel, North America.

There's no question that tar sands in Canada are probably the largest source of oil available to the U.S. over a long period of time. There's as much oil in the tar sands probably as there is in Saudi Arabia. The problem is, there's a huge capital requirement to develop that.

We are now spending half a trillion dollars on foreign oil, importing 62 percent of the oil we use, and we haven't had the leadership in D.C. to do anything about it. We've got to move to other sources of energy. But we've gotten way behind, and will continue to pay the fiddler. It's not a good future.

I always saw myself as a large stockholder trying to make a difference. I wasn't raiding anybody.

If you're on the right side of the issue, just keep driving until you hear glass breaking. Don't quit.

I don't need any more money.

If you don't have a refinery operating, it's hard to use oil that's available.

I know what people say, that water's a lot like air. Do you charge for air? Well, of course not. Well, you shouldn't charge for water. Okay, watch what happens you won't have any water

We've got all these politicians talking about better health care and what all, but believe me, we're not going to have the money to take care of sick people.. or anyone else as far as I'm concerned.. if we don't fix our energy problem right now. I've got an idea what to do. It might not be a perfect idea, but hell, none of my best ideas have been perfect.

There is no free market for oil.

Far too many executives have become more concerned with the four P's -- pay, perks, power and prestige -- rather than making profits for shareholders.

We're going to have shortages and prices are going to go up. Gasoline is going to be extremely tight for us.

I've got an opinion on everything. Sure, you ought to do OCS, you ought to do renewables, you ought to do biofuels, you ought to do ethanol, all of them. Those are ours and we've got to get off the dependency on the foreign oil.

I've been married over 50 years of my life.

Predictability can lead to failure.

The first billion is a helluva lot harder.

Never Googled myself. I use a computer for market quotes and news, but I've never Googled myself. But I have visited their headquarters.

I don't go looking for somewhere to spend my money. You can step on a tube of toothpaste for a week, if you have to. I spend what I need to and give it away.

I never did anything dishonest.

Don't get the idea that I've turned green. My business is making money, and I think this is going to make a lot of money.

I don't think for a minute we went to Iraq for oil. It just so happened that it had oil. But I think we'll come out of the Iraqi situation with a call on their oil at market price.

I don't believe in a price on carbon, because the government is going to control it and they're going to fail.

When you are hunting elephants, don't get distracted chasing rabbits.