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We've always been modestly leveraged, and we've never believed in a great deal of leverage on either our private equity business or on our investment banking business. And I think it really goes back to my uncle and dad growing up in the Depression and just seeing what happened to people who were overly levered.

At times I ask myself if I shouldn't be living a more regular, stable life with a 9-to-5 job. Then I think about it and realise that there is no point in planning everything.

I'm very unpredictable, but at the end of the day, I'm working. Sometimes things change in my life. It's like, 'Hold up - that ain't feel good. That felt good.' And that's how I look at anything I do.

I'm always sort of anticipating life being difficult, but on a basic level, that's sort of on the surface, on a basic level, I'm optimistic in the sense that I think it's all going to be alright in the end.

As I tell my daughter, when you want something in life - no matter how impossible it seems - you need to fight for it.

I don't like to change things too much. I think pretty hard about things before I jump in, and once I do, I feel, 'All right, I don't want to waste the energy of buying, selling this, going on Consumer Reports, test driving, buying, selling a house.' I feel life is to be lived.

Time scares me: having enough time to do all the things that I want to do in life, just even in terms of forgetting about the business I'm in.