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I put $5 million into the real-estate business when the world was coming to an end, and three years later, by 1980, I woke up and was worth a hundred. That's a lot of money back then.

I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough.

One thing that people keep on saying to me is that the wealth and the fame must have made up for missing out on my childhood. But the idea of money - putting a price on your childhood - is ridiculous. You will never get those years back and you can't put a price on them.

Now people look at 'The Scream' or Van Gogh's 'Irises' or a Picasso and see its new content: money. Auction houses inherently equate capital with value.

It's not part of my ambition to become fabulously rich. My plan was always to make my pictures, and hopefully people would buy them, and then I'd buy a studio, buy a house, help friends out, do bits and bobs - but I've no idea after that.

Well, first of all, I'm worth every penny.

I have made more money than I ever thought anybody should ever make. But who cares if you're worth $500 million or $1 billion? That is not what I want to be remembered for, but for giving something back.

Every penny from 'Gossip Girl,' my pension, my stocks has been spent fighting for my children.

I made enough money to buy a house. That's crazy, but fame proved ephemeral.

I bought a company in the mid-'90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I've made lots of dumb decisions. That's part of the game.