One cannot expect to coast along and rise automatically to the top, no matter what friends you may have in the company. There may have been a time when, in large corporations, a person could rise simply because he had a stock interest or because he had friends in top management. That's not true today. Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you're not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.

If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.

The Japanese banks are not having an easy time as they once had.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual, even exceptional, family, but the effect was different on each of us.

Whatever you do, if you do it hard enough you'll enjoy it. The important thing is to work and work hard.

I can only say that I have had a wonderful life.

I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. In order to appreciate cultures of another nation, one needs to go there, know the people and mingle with the culture of that country. One way to do that, if one is lucky enough, is to buy things from those cultures.