Branson said it to journalist Decca Aitkenhead in The Guardian’s Saturday interview, published under the headline “Buy Gatwick? Why not?” on 20 September 2008. The wording is genuine and verifiable — but it is the first half of a two-sentence answer, and the reporter’s very next line calls it “a vintage Branson line” and says it is unconvincing.
“My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day” Richard Branson, interviewed by Decca Aitkenhead, "Buy Gatwick? Why not?", The Guardian, 20 September 2008. Full quotation: "My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, 'Oh God, I've got to do this today.'" Verified against the original article by Quotle.info, 8 September 2026.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the world of Richard Branson — English business magnate · Founder of the Virgin Group. Theme: "My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The source
Article
Buy Gatwick? Why not?
Publication
The Guardian, Saturday interview — 20 September 2008
Interviewer
Decca Aitkenhead
Speaker
Richard Branson, born 18 July 1950
My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.’
Two sentences, as printed
Branson says this at his mother’s house in the south of France, after the interview had been moved from New York to Mallorca to Portugal and the two of them had gone out in a leaky speedboat. The article’s next sentence calls it “a vintage Branson line” and then flatly says it is unconvincing.
Primary source located and read. The full two-sentence quotation appears verbatim in “Buy Gatwick? Why not?” by Decca Aitkenhead ↗, whose embedded publication data gives 19 September 2008, 23:01 GMT.
The specialist reference agrees.Wikiquote’s Richard Branson page ↗ carries the quotation with the citation “From his interview in The Guardian newspaper, 20th September 2008” — the same article. Quote Investigator has no entry for this line.
No earlier appearance found. Searches for the phrase surfaced nothing predating the 2008 interview; every reprint traced back to it or to a sourceless aggregator copy, such as The Cite Site’s Branson page ↗, which gives no publication at all.
The quotation was published in a newspaper article first printed on 20 September 2008, so it is firmly in copyright — nowhere near the pre-1931 line that would make it public domain in the United States. The article is the work of Decca Aitkenhead for Guardian News & Media Ltd; the words inside the quotation marks are Branson’s own. Short quotation with attribution, as here, is ordinary fair use; wholesale reproduction of the interview is not.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Right man, half the quote
This one is not a fake. The unusual thing about it is that a line this poster-ready turns out to have a real date, a real reporter and a real transcript behind it. What gets lost is everything around it — the second sentence, the source, and the paragraph that immediately doubted it.
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The wordingThe one-sentence version truncated
What Branson actually said was two sentences. The famous half stops at “…every minute of every day”; the rest — “I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today’” — is the part that does the work, and it is right there in the original interview ↗.
✕
The sourceQuote aggregators sourceless
Sites that reprint the line generally give a name and nothing else. The Cite Site ↗ — a site named for citation — carries it under “Richard Branson” with no publication, no interviewer and no date.
✕
The framingThe motivational reading
Reprinted alone it reads as advice. In context it is an answer a reporter openly disbelieved: the Guardian piece ↗ calls it a vintage Branson line and then spends the next paragraph describing a guarded, on-message man who barely made eye contact.
✓Genuinely Branson — spoken to Decca Aitkenhead and printed in The Guardian on 20 September 2008 ↗. The quote is real; the version everyone shares is half of it.
Context
The line, and the sentence that follows it
Aitkenhead had chased Branson across three countries to get the interview — New York, then Mallorca, then Portugal — and finally caught him at his mother’s house in the south of France, where they went out in a leaky speedboat and bailed water out of it. That is the scene the line lands in, and it reads like the perfect caption for it.
Then the piece turns. The reporter calls it a vintage Branson line, the embodiment of the Virgin brand — and immediately says it is unconvincing. She describes a man who barely makes eye contact across two hours and picks his words with corporate care. The quote survives on posters precisely because it is cut loose from the paragraph that questioned it.
It reached the poster industry as one sentence. In the paper it is half of an answer, and the next line doubts it.
What else was in the interview
The interview ran the week Lehman Brothers collapsed, which killed Branson’s planned Virgin hotels launch in New York, and the week British Airways’ chief executive called the airline industry’s crisis the worst ever. Branson spent it talking about buying a stake in Gatwick and handing arriving passengers cold drinks and flowers.
It was also a book interview. Business Stripped Bare was published that month by Virgin Books, and the Guardian piece notes the book’s central theme is follow-your-heart, have-fun advice — the same register as the quote.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Born 18 July 1950 · English business magnate · Founder of the Virgin Group
Sir Richard Branson co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, building a magazine and mail-order record business into an airline, a rail operator, a mobile network and a spaceflight company. He has always been at least as good at selling the idea of Richard Branson — the grinning chancer who does business for fun — as at any single venture, which is why so many one-line philosophies circulate under his name. This one, unusually, has a paper trail: it was said out loud, to a reporter, on a named date.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Decca Aitkenhead, “Buy Gatwick? Why not?” The Guardian (Saturday interview), 20 September 2008.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/my-general-attitude-to-life-is-to-enjoy-every-minute-of/