Yvon Chouinard

I drive old cars, all my Patagonia clothes are years and years old, I hardly have anything new. I try to lead a very simple life. I am not a consumer of anything. And I much prefer sleeping on somebody’s floor than in a motel room.

Yvon Chouinard

I wanted to distance myself from those pasty faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I was going to become a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms.

Yvon Chouinard

I’m kind of like a samurai. They say if you want to be a samurai, you can’t be afraid of dying, and as soon as you flinch, you get your head cut off. I’m not afraid of losing this business.

Yvon Chouinard

I’m the company philosopher and the burr in the saddle. I’m the one who says we need to try harder, improve the quality of our products, become a part of the political process, help elect people who are good for the environment.

Yvon Chouinard

I’ve accepted the fact that there’s a beginning and end to everything. All species are born, evolve, and then die off. We’re going through the 6th great extinction and the large mammals are going first and, you know what – we’re large mammals!

Yvon Chouinard

If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, ‘This sucks, I’m going to do my own thing.’

Yvon Chouinard

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

Yvon Chouinard

It was also clear that in order to survive at this game, we had to get serious.

Yvon Chouinard

Like the Zen approach to archery or anything else, you identify the goal and then forget about it and concentrate on the process.

Yvon Chouinard

Looking back now, I see that we made all the classic mistakes of a growing company.

Yvon Chouinard