I think most people act in their self-interest.

I've always been comfortable thinking things through and doing it, more or less, my way. You can be as creative as you want, but if you're... unwilling to work on the details, to see those put into action, then creativity is just dreams, or worse, hallucinations.

American business would be run better today if there was more alignment between CEOs' interest and the company. For example, would the financial crisis of 2008 have occurred if the CEO of Lehman and Morgan Stanley and Goldman and Citibank had to take a very small percentage of every mortgage-backed security... or every loan they made?

I just wanted to be a businessman, and to me, the best way to understand business was to be an accountant.

You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.

I'm not one of those people who thinks they simply deserve success. I have the drive to work.

I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind, furious optimism.

Success is a collective job, and one can't claim the credit for themselves.