Commercial banks are very good for certain businesses, like loans and guarding other people's money. They're not great investors or entrepreneurs.

- John Gutfreund

I don't have many regrets. I regret mistakes, particularly those that damage other people, and we've all made some of those. But I'm not sad about change.

- John Gutfreund

I have never been a social lion; I was misidentified as one because I have a very attractive second wife.

- John Gutfreund

I am more rich in goods than I am in money.

- John Gutfreund

I thought that ending Glass-Steagall was a mistake.

- John Gutfreund

Shareholders share in the downside and not necessarily in the upside; that's the whole story.

- John Gutfreund

The media, the polls and our legislatures fortunately have short attention spans.

- John Gutfreund

I never thought of myself as a king. People really want you to be their deity. They forget the fact that you are a person who has feelings and doubts.

- John Gutfreund

People in Philadelphia are a world apart from New York. They're very different from people in the New York scene. The New York scene wants your visibility and wants your money.

- John Gutfreund

Proprietary stock-index arbitrage is but one aspect of program trading. Arbitrage will take place whenever there is an imbalance created in one or more markets that are similar.

- John Gutfreund