Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.

Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you've won.

I knew a guy who had $5 million and owned his house free and clear. But he wanted to make a bit more money to support his spending, so at the peak of the internet bubble he was selling puts on internet stocks. He lost all of his money and his house and now works in a restaurant. It's not a smart thing for the country to legalize gambling [in the stock market] and make it very accessible.

I don't spend much time regretting the past, once I've taken my lesson from it. I don't dwell on it.

We tend to buy things - a lot of things - where we don't know exactly what will happen, but the outcome will be decent.

I think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn't like it; indeed, especially when one doesn't like it.

The general culture of investment banking has deteriorated over the years. We did a $6 million deal years ago for Diversified Retailing and we were rigorously and intelligently screened. They bankers cared and wanted to protect their clients. The culture now is that anything that can be sold for a profit will be. 'Can you sell it?' is the moral test, and that's not an adequate test.