Quotes By Kenneth Lay

They can't do without electricity. They can do with less electricity.

Today, there are also buyers and sellers of all these energy commodities, just like there are buyers and sellers of food commodities and many other commodities.

Jeff knew full well what he was walking away from. Again, he needed to deal with this right away.

Trillions of dollars every day are being exchanged around the world in all of the financial markets.

There are absolutely no problems that had anything to do with Jeff's departure.

The last thing I would have ever expected to happen to me in my life would be that, in fact, I would be accused of doing something wrong and maybe even something criminal.

But the most important thing is, Enron did not cause the California crisis.

There are no accounting issues, no trading issues, no reserve issues, no previously unknown problem issues.

Every market is in transition.

But I can't take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.

I don't think I'm a criminal, number one.

I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well.

When there's uncertainty they always think there's another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall.

Our liquidity is fine. As a matter of fact, it's better than fine. It's strong.

I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron. But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal.

But indeed a market like California is not good for Enron.

I have faith in the market when we get the rules right.

We need someone who is a strong representative of our value system.

The transmission systems are still regulated.

We see ourselves as first helping to open up markets to competition.

Well, rates would go up whether you deregulate or not, and of course, the rates that are going up right now on the electricity side are still within the regulated framework.

Investors don't like uncertainty.

I've been a strong financial and political supporter of, first, President Bush Sr. when he was running for president, and even when he ran for president a time or two and failed.

Any slots at the senior level, including CEO or other slots, will be filled internally.

We don't break the law.

We use competitive markets to arrange for delivery of our food supply.

You'd rather have a surplus versus a shortage in your position.

We've tried to get as much supply into California as we can.

In the case of Enron, we balance our positions all the time.

I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses.