If a person is not willing to make a mistake, you're never going to do anything right.

A lot of people at Shearson ended up making a lot of money because they had stock or stock options. Their kids were able to go to college, and it changed a lot of people's lives.

What turned me on then, and turns me on even today - and when the time comes from me to retire from management I think I'd still be interested in it - is that everything that happens in the world affects the price of securities.

I was sort of a sissy as a little kid.

The more we can do to create a better society, that benefits more people, the better chance we have that our society will continue to grow and prosper.

Details create the big picture.

And when we used to play and fight in the streets in Brooklyn and I would get hurt or something, my mother would always come out and save me. So that sort of postponed the inevitable about getting a good beating, without having somebody to come and save you.