Top 50 Deborah Meaden Quotes

Peter Jones is hot.

I’m always asked about how women get on in the boardroom and my answer is always, ‘Never acknowledge that you are a woman. Your gender is not the point.’

I don’t look for praise.

I don’t like shopping and I’m lucky enough to have a stylist to do it for me.

My parents are not nurturers. They’re a bit like me: do a good job and move on.

People think I am a workaholic but I just love business.

I care a lot about animal welfare and children. Although I don’t have children myself.

I’m not looking for hobbies, I’m looking for investments.

Both my parents were entrepreneurs and built a nice leisure business. But money was tight when I was growing up.

I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about how I look and I don’t fall into the trap of judging myself by my appearance.

Much as I’m loving the ‘Strictly’ experience, I’m sure I’ll always be better known for my business career and my appearances on ‘Dragons’ Den’ than I will for my cha-cha-cha or Viennese waltz.

I don’t actually like dogs smelling of anything other than natural dogs.

Playing the piano was what I loved doing for myself, but as soon as it became a ‘thing’ that I was being pushed to pursue by my teachers, I rebelled.

I have no problem paying taxes. It doesn’t bother me, because I want to live in a society that’s happy.

You give power to issues if you pay a lot of attention to them. The more attention you give them the more power they have. So the most powerful thing you can do is just get on and ignore it.

The minute I think ‘Oh God, I don’t want to do this because I’m scared,’ is the moment I have to do something, whatever it is.

I won’t get involved in businesses that I think cut across any kind of animal welfare issues.

It is what you can do with your money that matters because money has no value in itself.

I use my clothes to make my day better – for example, if it’s a dull day, I’ll wear something bright to cheer myself up.

I look in the mirror and see lines, but I have earned those lines. It has taken me 59 years to get them and I am not losing them now.

It can be difficult to find investment for a new business, particularly one which is highly innovative or breaks new ground.

We have a very good history of manufacturing in this country but I worry that these skills are being lost. We walk around saying, ‘We haven’t got any manufacturing any more’ but Made In Britain really means something, particularly in other parts of the world. We need to support British manufacturing.

Nobody is like the person I am on TV, surely, only Cruella de Vil, or the wicked witch from Snow White.

Provided someone can persuade me, I will invest in anything.

My friends would say I’m not the person to go to for tea, a cuddle and sympathy, because I can’t deliver. But if you want something sorted out and need a champion who will stand by your side, that is me.

To be honest, I’ve made a lot mistakes and I quite like making them because you learn from them.

I feel like the luckiest person alive. I spend my life doing the stuff I love. I’m surrounded by inventive people who are full of energy and life.

People can call me what they like – fat, ugly, sour – but tell me I’m not fair, tell me I’m not ethical, those are the things that bother me.

I often see people who I think could be really successful in business but they just don’t realise they have the skills and they don’t believe in themselves.

I’m not scared of many sectors, so if you look at my investment portfolio, it is pretty wide. I’ve invested in anything from market research firms to fashion houses and textile companies.

You need to tell people where they stand. If someone’s done a good job, you should tell them they’ve done damn well. But if they haven’t, you should take the same attitude.

I’m deeply impatient. If I can’t park directly in front of somewhere, I go home.

I didn’t want to get married.

I suffer from reverse body dysmorphia. When I look in the mirror I see somebody slimmer. It’s quite a shock to see myself on TV, especially on widescreen.

I hate getting things wrong and I hate failing.

If people have got an amazing opportunity such as on ‘Dragons’ Den’ and they mess it up by being lazy with their presentation it does make me a bit cross.

I would have liked children, but I am not all disappointed. I’ve had a lot of stuff thrown at me in life so I don’t dwell on it.

As a young woman, before I had any money, I went backpacking across India, and I was aware of how gritty it could be.

My parents felt I should earn my money because I would then value it. So they would pay me a shilling or two to do jobs such as washing the car, cleaning and washing up.

You can’t beat a bar of chocolate between cheap white bread – there is nothing like it.

When I first started on ‘Dragons’ Den,’ I was under pressure to buy flashy cars and boats but I resisted.

I had my first flower stall when I was seven, at the end of the drive in Minehead, Somerset. Nobody was stopping so I moved it to my neighbour’s drive, because I thought: ‘Location, location, location.’ It worked.

I love the full-on Hollywood glamour of the 1930s and ’40s.

I’m not going to be told that I shouldn’t be doing anything, or behaving in any particular way at any age of my life.

I’m not great at taking compliments because I always find the thing I could do better.

I am not just sitting in my office making deals all the time.

I have definitely learnt in business that when you have a smart, engaged entrepreneur with good judgement they can really drive even a mediocre business forward so to me the entrepreneur is very important.

I don’t think I’m ruthless, but I’m very driven, irritatingly so.

Money is not the ultimate point, but it remains the actual measure of success.

As an entrepreneur and employer, in the fairly recent past I have been astonished at how difficult it has been to get young people to take the idea of getting a job seriously.