John Catsimatidis
Pizza is no longer on my diet.Collection: Diet
I'm not a Johnny-come-lately Jew. I've been around. I watch out for the Jews; I watch out for the Catholics.
I'm a visionary. I'm not a maintenance person.
Anytime you cut food stamps, it naturally affects sales. People spend less.
One mentor I had taught me that people do what you inspect, not necessarily what you expect. In other words, if nobody is watching, there will be some slack off.
We have to draw the line someplace with all the pesticides being used by the farmers.
Material things don't matter.
I started in the supermarket business in the early '70s. And by '75, '76, I realized you don't have a business unless you own the real estate.
Americans like buying American vs. buying from Chavez or buying from the Middle East.
The reason I grew so fast in the supermarket business, without help of the banks in those days, was through my vendors. I convinced my vendors, the companies I was doing business with, if I did more business, they would do more business.
It seems everyone knows the value of a cantaloupe or a quart of milk.
Grocery stores can't afford to pay $80 a square foot. At that rate, we are going out of business.
I'm a New York businessman.
I'm the same businessman Donald Trump is.
It will be almost impossible for any other candidate to raise the money that the Clintons can raise.
I think New York is destined to have a Democratic mayor, and I want Freddy Ferrer to be that mayor.
When the commodities go up and the cost of transportation is going up, and the value of the dollar is going down, it's all going to translate to an 8 to 10 percent rise in food prices.
What transpired at Semgroup was no less than a $500 billion fraud on the people of the world.
The media doesn't always reflect reality.
As mayor, I would support law enforcement, not knock it down.
The Fresh Direct model doesn't work.
What's worse than getting divorced?
Nobody destroys people - people destroy themselves, and it's very, very sad.
There are two New Yorks - Manhattan and everything else. I'm a Manhattanite. I feel sorry for those people who aren't.
I put $5 million into the real-estate business when the world was coming to an end, and three years later, by 1980, I woke up and was worth a hundred. That's a lot of money back then.
I believe business has to do well and that the surrounding communities do well.
I promoted myself as a fusion ticket. I was running as a Republican liberal.
I was a Clinton Democrat for twenty years.
We are teaching kids to fail. We need to teach our kids to succeed.
It is tough that a lot of kids have single-family homes.
Everyone - whether it's the Jews, the Greeks, the Catholics - everybody is entitled to religious beliefs and entitled to their traditions.
I just want to reflect the respect I have for animals.
I could have beat Obama.
I could be like Joe Kennedy and say, 'My kids are going to run for president!'
All my life, I've been winning, ok?
I care about making New York better.
I'm not a Mike Bloomberg billionaire.
I respect John Kennedy for saying that he had a dream that we'd go to the moon before the end of the decade.
Bill Clinton told me that when he was 14, he shook John Kennedy's hand, and that inspired him to be president.
New York is for everybody; it's for the poor, it's for the middle-class, it's for the wealthy. We can't punish any one group and chase them away.
I think the rich should pay more in taxes - I agree with that 100 percent - but everybody should feel the pain a little bit.
New York never felt the recession. New York never felt a depression.
I was a Mitt Romney Republican because he was pro-business.
I grew up on 135th Street. I grew up on the poor side of New York. I grew up in Harlem.
I am a real New Yorker... I didn't go to Harvard, I didn't go to Yale... I rooted for the Yankees; I didn't root for the Boston Red Sox.
I'm not ashamed of being successful. You know, they criticized Romney for being ashamed of it. I think we've got to inspire our kids that we shouldn't be ashamed to be successful.
I'm a Bill Clinton social Republican.
My life would be better without Gristedes.
My father died in '97. But at least he lived until 93, so he saw my success.
You have to work at everything. You've got to make it work.