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Monty Moncrief Quotes

18 quotes from Monty Moncrief — Texas oil billionaire and wildcatter..

Read the full Monty Moncrief playbook →

“We're 100% family owned, unincorporated and independent, and we intend to stay that way.”

Independence

“Passing a legacy on were oilmen.”

Legacy

“Optimism is the personal quality that nurtures luck.”

Optimism

“No guts, no blue chips, has always been a wildcatter's expression of faith.”

Courage

“What they needed was a company that had a single man running it; no committees, no group decisions, no hierarchy of managers, no professional deal-killers or pessimists.”

Leadership

“His unquestioning confidence in the worthiness of his enterprise made him seem impervious to doubts.”

Confidence

“He kept his faith in the absolute value of building, of progress, of getting things done.”

Progress

“We're oilmen meant that anything that extended beyond the realm of oil was not a proper Moncrief concern.”

Focus

“I'd rather be lucky than smart because a lot of smart guys go hungry.”

Luck

“In business, there's no 'what if'. There's only 'what happened'.”

Reality

“We signed this deal. We figured out what was best. This is a we kind of business. We don't tolerate any of that I stuff around here.”

— Monty Moncrief

“No one is pulling punches in a drama that smacks of Shakespeare's King Lear colliding with HBO's Succession in downtown Cowtown.”

— Fort Worth Report, February 2022

“I learned everything from my daddy.”

— W.A. 'Tex' Moncrief Jr.

“Accumulate a lot of singles and gradually get into the doubles and triples before you try for the home runs.”

— W.A. 'Tex' Moncrief Jr.

“As long as your mind's in good shape you can work until you die. That's what my dad did. He died right here in the office working on a deal at age ninety-one.”

— W.A. 'Tex' Moncrief Jr.

“I'm still looking for deals. Just going to keep looking and hoping, looking and hoping, that's all you can do.”

— W.A. 'Tex' Moncrief Jr.

“It was just the greatest thing I ever saw. People were jumping around and hollering and hugging each other just like they'd won a football game. I decided on the spot that I wanted to become an oilman.”

— W.A. 'Tex' Moncrief Jr., on the 1931 East Texas gusher

“We're oilmen. We're one hundred percent family-owned, unincorporated, and independent, and we intend to stay that way.”

— Monty Moncrief

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Monty Moncrief

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Monty Moncrief

Texas oil billionaire and wildcatter.