I was single for most of my life. The best thing that happened to me is my wife. I've got four kids. All of them go to Harvard. Much better than their dad. They're really bright kids.

Ask yourself: What forms the decisions you make? What is it that gnaws at you? What are your crucible moments?

I think finding the way in life is the hardest part. At every stage of life, every trial, every success, you know, you're going into some kind of fog. There isn't a plan that suddenly reveals itself, and you go, "Ta-da! Now I understand."

A woman at the Limited once asked me, 'Why do you work?' She said, 'You made a lot of money as a young man, so why are you still working?' I had never thought about it before. Forced to consider it, I told her, 'You know why? Because I think that if you stop to smell the roses, you'll get hit by a truck.

One of the things I've probably absorbed when I was in business school - and didn't know I was learning it - was about life cycles, that things begin, and they peak, and then they decline. So whether you look at life cycles of fashion, or you look at life cycles of things that people buy, designs, everything is in a life cycle. Getting out of the apparel businesses and into beauty and lingerie, those were very big bets, but they were very deliberately thought about and tested over time.

I was single for most of my life. The best thing that happened to me is my wife. I've got four kids. All of them go to Harvard. Much better than their dad. They're really bright kids.

If you start painting yourself into a corner, life starts shutting down. There is always hopefully a next.