Howard Lutnick

“You can't make promises you can't keep.”

“It's hard for bad things to happen when you have no debt.”

“It's the details that make people distinct, that make them individuals.”

“Washington is not the engine of the economy.”

“I have great kids and family.”

“I worked during summers on the foreign exchange desk as a dollar/yen broker for Noonan, Astley & Pierce. I used to write the chairman notes about how he could improve his business. And I met Bernie Cantor through this job.”

“My goal after 9/11 was to take care of the families of the people we lost, and that was the most important thing.”

“The best way to show someone you love them is to care for the people they love.”

“For us to be successful, we have to kick our competitors' butt.”

“When you take away all the people whose shoulders a CEO stands on, the CEO is just a person.”

“The Cantor reputation is one we get from clients and those we hire.”

“The idea that big buyside firms are going to come in and trade mano-a-mano with high-frequency trading firms shows a lack of knowledge of the business.”

“I believe in what I call 'the surfer's theory.' You see a really, really big wave. You keep surfing, keep going forward. You just don't look back.”

“In 1997, clients balked at self-ordering. They thought it was beneath them. But in 1998, a sea change in perception came, thanks to the rise of the Net and online trading. The concept of doing it yourself was not crazy.”

“Anything commodity-like will be sold online. The world is going to trade commodities like it trades stocks.”

“In this business, technology is life or death.”

“People looked to rating agencies to do the work for them.”