Sophia Amoruso Quotes

“I learned the hard way that taking shortcuts and living for free is not really living free.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Nothing will teach you more about perceived value than taking something with literally no value and selling it in the auction format. It teaches you the beauty and power of presentation, and how you can make magic out of nothing.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Work hard, no matter how much recognition you get.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“A lot of young people who I employ expect a raise after three months or expect not to have to put in more work than what’s in their job description.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Everyone is told to go to high school and get good grades and go to college and get good grades and then get a job and then get a better job. There’s no one really telling a story about how they totally blew it, and they figured it out.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“It’s important that people are open. Some people say, ‘I’m going to be a doctor,’ and they’re a really good doctor. But for the rest of us, it’s a big question mark. Just giving yourself a break, letting yourself try new things, and when something doesn’t work out, moving along… it’s all we can really do.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Making small talk about what someone is wearing is just another form of unsolicited feedback.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“The time making money should be greater than the time that you are spending money.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“It takes a lot more than just knowing how to put an outfit together to succeed in the fashion industry, so more power to you if this is where you want to be; just don’t expect it to be an extended trip to the mall.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“It was easy for me in my bathrobe to provide really great customer service. As an introvert, it’s really much easier to do than when standing in a retail store.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“If you look at my Instagram, girls are just beating down my door for tips or a job or mentorship. I can’t hire every single one of them. My story is one thing that gives them hope. It’s an unconventional story with anecdotes, commonsense advice and a big dose of permission to figure things out for yourself.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I work in silence.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“As a visual person, I love a creative resume. Putting in a little effort on the design side will show that you care about making things look good.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“There’s no ‘Chutes and Ladders’ in life.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Only the paranoid survive.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“It’s the beauty of the Web. You can pretend to be anything you want. But people figure out pretty quick if you don’t live up to it.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I make money, and I don’t need money.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“My philosophy is that you sell things for more than you bought them.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I’ve never seen someone work for a salary.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Everyone does a style book, and I wanted to write a business book for people that didn’t think they would like a business book.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“The first thing I ever sold online was stolen.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“EBay gave me the framework to discover I was an e-commerce entrepreneur. I touched everything, from shipping to logistics.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Lots of people are going to sell clothes online. But not a lot of people have built a brand, a living, breathing brand that people feel like they’re part of.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“The modern girl is less concerned with everything being a brand name.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I built a huge profitable business with no debt.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I’ve probably spent more time than any other brand reading every last comment. To listen to people the way you’re able to online is very powerful.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I’m a capitalist, I’m a CEO, I run a big business, I’m an employer.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Getting fired was always a big deal to me. It’s a bit like having someone break up with you.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“It was my full intent as a teenager to smash capitalism and eat dumpster food.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I had 60,000 friends on MySpace.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I’m really good at hiring good people.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Creativity and business acumen don’t always go hand in hand.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I want to give other creatives the opportunity to find the entrepreneur inside themselves and teach them how to build their own platform.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I’ve been wondering for a while now if the CEO role is one that I want – and the one that I’m best at.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“A lot of people in my generation don’t seem to get that you have to work your way up. I don’t care if filing invoices is beneath you. If you don’t do it, who do you think is going to? Your boss? Nope. That’s why she hired you.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Don’t you dare alter your inner freak.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I don’t lead with an iron fist. I don’t yell at people. I have a way of making my opinion clear.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I have three pieces of advice I want you to remember: Don’t ever grow up. Don’t become a bore. Don’t let The Man get to you.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Failure is your invention.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“You are not a special snowflake.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“My favorite magazine is the ‘Harvard Business Review.’ If someone sat across from me in a restaurant and didn’t know me, that might surprise them.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Every woman who has a business book has a platform. For the most part, they’re either a television personality or someone who had the perfect pedigree and worked their way up the career ladder.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“There are a lot of parents who’ve come to me and said about their daughters, ‘Oh my God, she’s 21, she’s totally flailing. Your story gives me hope.’ I put my mom through that.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I didn’t buy the Porsche for status. I hate that, and it’s actually kind of goofy now because in L.A., a Porsche is like a Honda. It was just that I could pay that much money for a car and drive it off the lot.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“When you owe money to people, you’re always going to owe money to people, so you should take care of it as soon as possible. It doesn’t go away just because you ignore it.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I am still a lover of paper books. One of my first jobs was in a bookstore, and I still like to be able to write in a margin and feel the paper. Once inside of a digital device, I end up losing things.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I wrote ‘#GIRLBOSS’ while running a $100 million-plus revenue business.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I was terrified and confused every day of my life until I started Nasty Gal, and for a good while after as well.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“You can work for other people and still be a #GIRLBOSS; it’s more about a state of mind and knowing yourself well enough to know when you’re making decisions for yourself or because the world expects them of you. And guess what? It’s okay to do that sometimes, too.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Music is such a big part of my life.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“My parents taught me the value of money and working hard. And I kind of got that in me intuitively.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Every other fashion brand out there – including those that I call ‘competitors’ – are run by mostly old white men, and the customer knows it.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Don’t act like you’ve arrived when you’re just receiving the invitation.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I often say my naivete early on in my career worked in my favor.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Sometimes in the world, there’s such pressure to follow a certain path that we forget the importance of learning as we go.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I think many people go to business school and learn ways to play it safe, ensuring that they avoid some of the pain that entrepreneurs endure while taking less calculated risks.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“The best wisdom is earned through experience, particularly mistakes.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I think it’s important that everyone understands that there’s no real prescription to having an awesome life.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“A great mantra to have, whether you’re breaking up with your boyfriend or you lose your job, or something changes that you didn’t anticipate – which is a fact of life, and very much a fact of running a business – is: ‘I was OK before this, I will be OK after this.’”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I can be pretty reactive, and I’ve learned over time to be less reactive: to stop and think before I make decisions.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Success is a scary concept because it assumes something kind of final. In the grand scheme of life, I don’t think there is some ultimate success.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“It’s a lot of work to sell one thing on the Internet.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I’ve never worked in a retail store, but I did sell shoes at Gimme Shoes in San Francisco, a job I was fired from.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I love clothing and still shop a lot of vintage.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I think there are very few brands with a person’s point of view behind them.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I can show up at a Goldman Sachs conference wearing a Judas Priest T-shirt – and I have – while everyone else is wearing the same dress.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I don’t have a lot of style icons. There are not a lot of people today who I look to.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I don’t read fashion blogs all that much. I do read magazines, and I trust my friends’ opinions, even though we all dress very differently.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I think I’ve just gotten really good at accessorizing personally. I’ve always been good at accessorizing other people, and intellectually, I’ve known how to accessorize, but I was pretty minimal personally – although I was wearing a ton of rings.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I have this arsenal of high-waisted wide-leg ’70s pants and overalls. They are more roller-disco than Alexander Wang overalls.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“My entire youth has been Nasty Gal. My entire future is Nasty Gal.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“It’s amazing how directly you can connect with people via social media.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Spell check exists for a reason.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I love mirrors.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I feel like there’s so many places to shop today that just feel like an Excel spreadsheet put between four walls.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I would say I’m a boss who’s learning, and I hope people have the patience for the fact that I’m learning along the way because that’s a tough thing.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I don’t want to spend too much time dwelling on what I’ve already done because there is still so much to do.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I’m not going to lie – it’s insulting to be praised for being a ‘woman’ with ‘no college degree.’”

― Sophia Amoruso

“You don’t get taken seriously by asking someone to take you seriously. You’ve got to show up and own it.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“If this is a man’s world, who cares? I’m still really glad to be a girl in it.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“My first job was as a sandwich artist at Subway.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“A typical day for me involves a lot of meetings.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Money looks better in the bank than on your feet.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Creativity is incredibly important, but drive is equally so.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“At the bare minimum, you need to be in your position for a year before you ask for a raise or title change.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“You want to know what four words I probably hate the most? ‘That’s not my job.’”

― Sophia Amoruso

“In an ideal world, you’d never have to do things that are below your position, but this isn’t an ideal world, and it’s never going to be.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Some of the best things that I ever sold on Ebay, I bought on Ebay – just for way less.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Chaos magic is the idea that a particular set of beliefs serves as an active force in the world. In other words, we choose what and how we believe, and our beliefs are tools that we then use to make things happen… or not.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“My days of being the tardy employee at the record store gave me a cultural and musical understanding that was more unique than if I’d just listened to garbage-y pop on the radio my entire life.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“A big practice in chaos magic is the use of sigils, which are abstract words or symbols you create and embed with your wishes.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“You can’t convince someone else – whether it’s a potential employer, a loan officer at the car dealership, or someone you’ve been crushing on – that you’re amazing and terrific if you don’t actually think you are.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“’Have you ever considered changing the name Nasty Gal?’ is probably the dumbest question I’ve ever heard.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Selling $500 shoes when you make $12 an hour is just an awkward economic juxtaposition.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“I want people to feel the freedom to be themselves.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“When I was 22, I wasn’t too proud to do anything. I was taking out trash, buying stinky vintage clothes, and pulling gross Kleenex out of the pockets.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“If you knew what you wanted to be when you were 6 years old – great! If you have no idea what you want to be, that’s OK!”

― Sophia Amoruso

“Sometimes the expectation of being inspired in one specific way may close you off to the actual inspiration.”

― Sophia Amoruso

“When I go through hundreds of applications from people who all have very similar-sounding experience, cover letters are the only glimpse I have into a person’s personality.”

― Sophia Amoruso