Top 35 Quotes & Sayings by Henry Kravis

I've been in a hurry all my life. I've been in a hurry to succeed, and in a hurry to prove myself.

Look, don't congratulate us when we buy a company, congratulate us when we sell it. Because any fool can overpay and buy a company, as long as money will last to buy it.

I was an economics major in college, and every summer after school, I would drive my car from California, from Claremont men's college at the time, to New York. And I worked on Wall Street.

But once you buy a company, you are married. You are married to that company.

The trouble, in my opinion, with corporate America today, is that everything is thought of in quarters.

It used to be that you would go in to see a CEO, and you would ask them, 'Is your company for sale?' and if they said 'No, we have no interest in selling,' that was sort of the end of the conversation.

It's one of the most important things at the end of the day, being able to say no to an investment.

Giving back is something that comes from the heart to me. It's not that I do it because it's the right thing: I do it because I want do it.

Quite frankly, the financial community has to improve its image. The financial community has to be much more transparent than it is.

I want people who will stand up to me. People who are not afraid to say exactly what's on their minds, even though that's probably not what I want to hear. That's what I want.

I always like to refer managers in corporate America as the renters of the corporate assets, not the owners.

You only have one thing to sell in life, and that's yourself.

I have, in my partner George Roberts, a person who is the most wonderful man in the world to me. He's like a brother to me. Creating with him, being side by side with him, in whatever we try to do, is a real pleasure to me.

I love the ability to work with very good managers, and to provide the right incentives for them, and truly become a partner with that management, and make that management take a long view.

So I picked a field where I had a little exposure. Where I thought I could have an enormous challenge, and have a chance to really do some good, to be a pioneer in an area, and not just be like everyone else.

One, I love the creativity. I love the ability to create a capital structure that is appropriate for a company, no matter what field it happens to be in.

It's not just buying the company. Sure, we picked the right companies, and we picked the right management and, most importantly, we've given them the right incentive to perform.

In the '70s and '80s, what private equity did is it changed corporate America. It started holding companies accountable, and for the first time managers started thinking like owners.

If you have something at risk, you think differently.

If you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.

If we can just take a few companies, and use those as models, as examples, to show the rest of corporate America how they can become more competitive, that's what I'd like to do and that's what I hope to do.

If you build that foundation, both the moral and the ethical foundation, as well as the business foundation, and the experience foundation, then the building won't crumble.

As I said there is nothing wrong with failing. Pick yourself up and try it again. You never are going to know how good you really are until you go out and face failure.

I thought at the time that I wanted to go into institutional sales, selling stocks and bonds to institutions. In those days, which was the 1960s, the institutional salesman was making about $100,000 a year. I thought that was just an enormous amount of money.

And make sure that capital structure we have in place is the right capital structure. I think that's the reason that we've been successful.

To understand KKR, I always like to say, don't congratulate us when we buy a company. Any fool can buy a company. Congratulate us when we sell it and when we've done something with it and created real value.

A real entrepreneurs who do not need protection nets underneath

In the large buy out space, which is where we (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) focus our efforts, there are relatively few firms with the capital, experience, infrastructure and networks to compete effectively with the large complex companies that we seek to acquire.

We've got a portfolio of companies that range all the way from hotels to television stations and cable TV companies, oil and gas, consumer products, and industrial products. If there's anything that I want to know more about, I have the opportunity. It's right in our portfolio. I can spend time at the factory or with the manangement and learn as much as I want. You can't get bored doing that.

Any fool can buy a company; just pay enough

A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them.

If you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it.

Whales who come up and spout off get harpooned.

Our industry expertise (at KKR) enables the firm not only to make better investment choices but also to win the confidence of senior management and sellers, which has enabled us to purchase many companies on an exclusive basis.

Going public is not a business plan.