There are a lot of things in life way more important than money. All that said, some people do get confused. I play golf with a man who says, " What good is health? You can't buy money with it."

It's very useful to have a good grasp of all the big ideas in hard and soft science. A, it gives perspective. B, it gives a way for you to organize and file away experience in your head, so to speak.

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

It would be one of the most irritating experiences in the world to do a lot of work to uncover a fraud and then at have it go from X to 3X and at h the crooks happily partying with your money while you're meeting margin calls. Why would you want to go within hailing distance of that?

In the 1930s, there was a stretch where you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that's what's going on in today's private-equity world.

I remember the $0.05 hamburger and a $0.40-per-hour minimum wage, so I've seen a tremendous amount of inflation in my lifetime. Did it ruin the investment climate? I think not.

"[Lawyers who file class-action securities suits] is not a group you would want to marry into your family. "That said, more than half the time the people being sued by the Lerach firm are guilty of outrageous conduct. The problem is, they don't mind (suing) the other half. They are an equal opportunity litigator."