I bought a 1200-year-old Viking bracelet once.
Rick Harrison
You can have a soda every once in awhile, but don't drink a gallon of it a day.
It amazes me. I'm just a fat, middle-aged, bald guy, but people still want to meet me.
The Obama administration made it illegal for me to loan any money to anyone in the military. I have one compliance guy just for a pawn shop. It's everything from Homeland Security, FBI, the local police department, IRS - all these regulations I have to keep an eye on constantly, and it's just overwhelming for a small business.
The best part of my business is working with my family, and the worst part of my business is working with my family.
When you endorse a Republican, everyone sort of frowns on you. I don't know why, but hey.
I compete with the 'Welcome To Las Vegas' sign for the number one non-gaming tourist attraction in Las Vegas. I get more visitors than the Hoover Dam.
There's only so much stuff you can buy. I have to retail the stuff. Stuff that's really really weird - it's cool, but who are you going to sell it to? I do collect some stuff. In the end, I have to run a business.
I'm a nerdy guy who likes to read a lot.
I had this when I was 17 years old - a 1969 Oldsmobile Delta 88 with no backseat. I paid 150 bucks for it, I think, rode it for a good six months, and put four or five quarts of oil a week in it.
I asked for a horse for Christmas, and I got one! It's an adult horse. I didn't want a 5-year-old, which is a teenager for horses. It has a beautiful gait. It's the Cadillac of horses.
Las Vegas is a crazy, crazy town at times, so there's a lot of high-end things I get.
We don't teach kids how to think anymore. We're getting rid of the classics - high school is all about self-esteem.
It costs you just as much to ask a doctor 50 questions as it does to ask him one question. So go see your doctor with questions written down... And if he doesn't want to answer your 50 questions, go find yourself another doctor!
I hate to say this about television, since I have a television show, but it's just mind-numbing to me.
I tell people, 'I'm the only business in the world where I don't pick my merchandise.'
If I brought another car home, there would be problems. I have a lot of cars as it is. I'm a car addict.
I want to make coin collecting cool again.
It's the weird stuff that makes great television.
If life is tough, at least you got that thing you can pawn.
If you make it difficult to do business, there's not going to be any business.
The weird thing about the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop is that people come on vacation, and they bring stuff here to sell. They come here to see what we'll give them for it. Mostly, it's people from out of town.
I'm one of those guys who believes in next to zero government. They just screw everything up.
The show impacted our lives immediately. It is crazy. I can't watch the show. I get weirded out.
I was a really sick kid. I developed epilepsy when I was eight years old, and I would have violent seizures, and I would - literally, I couldn't get out of bed.
Most people want a lot more from us than stuff is worth because they think we're extremely wealthy or something.
I'm a really spastic guy. I can't sit still.
In the '90s, I went on eBay to buy some paddle tires for my four-wheeler ATV and couldn't find any. When I did find a manufacturer that sold them, I bought 20,000 and had no problem reselling them. So the next time you get mad when you can't find an item, realize there's a market waiting to be explored.
Being healthy is part of the happiness of life.
When you're the boss, you have no one else to turn to.
If the price is right, I will sell anything.
There's a reason why, when Reagan became president, he started getting rid of regulations, and we had a booming economy.
There's a gazillion different business license fees. And just keeping up with all the regulations - it just doesn't stop.
You have some cities that are saying that if you have a man who feels like he's a woman, he can use the women's restroom. I guarantee you that will be taken advantage of by some very bad men who want to go into a bathroom where there's young ladies. That will happen if you pass a law like that.
Socialism doesn't work. A big government doesn't work.
If you go to most pawn shops in Las Vegas, they will tell you exactly what they will pay for, say, an iPod. But if you show up with an 1833 ormolu clock, it won't pop up in their computer. They are going to tell you to go to Gold & Silver Pawn, because we buy weird things.
I only sleep about four or five hours a night. I read all night long.
Most people don't realize how regulated the pawn industry is, especially where I'm at in Nevada.
I can make a bourbon and Coke, those types of drinks... If the ingredients are named in the drink, I can make it.
What's normal life for the majority people of America, the liberal press thinks is like, 'Oh my gosh.' We don't live in that little, weird, bizarre vacuum of San Francisco.
The number one thing in this world that has brought people out of poverty is the ease of doing business. And it's getting harder and harder and harder. I mean, you basically have the Democrats out there saying I should pay more and more taxes on the profits I make.
We talk nonstop about what needs to be changed, and everyone has excuses for why the changes can't happen. I believe we must change our educational system first to get the changes moving forward. I'm happy to be a voice and get in front of an audience who can help by making education a priority.
Everyone likes to learn history. They just don't like to hear it from a professor looking at notes. They like to hear it like it's from their uncle, and that's how I explain history.
I'm just a normal guy and blue-collar historian, and people keep tuning in.
My dad was in the Navy; he was in Vietnam. My mom was trying to sell real estate on the side. We didn't have a lot of money.
My father was an amazing guy. Twenty years in the Navy, great father.
Being a middle-class family back in the 1970s meant we only had one TV... and it wasn't in your room... so when I was 8 years old, I began developing a passion for reading history, and it's never stopped.
I was a businessman for a long time before I was a celebrity.
When you come across something, and its quality is just outrageous, that's probably something of value. It's been that way for hundreds and hundreds of years - the really, really expensive stuff is also really, really high quality.
People come from all over the world to be on the show, and it still works because of all the interesting items coming in.
