Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.

Capitalism is a pretty brutal place.

To atone, I teach and try to set an example... I love spreading this stuff around. Just because it's trite doesn't mean it isn't right. In fact, I like to say, 'If it's trite, it's right.'

A foreign correspondent, after talking to me for a while, once said: "You don't seem smart enough to be so good at what you're doing. Do you have an explanation?"

We bought a doomed textile mill [Berkshire Hathaway] and a California S&L [Savings & Loan; Wesco] just before a calamity. Both were bought at a discount to liquidation value.

I think the reason why we got into such idiocy in investment management is best illustrated by a story that I tell about the guy who sold fishing tackle. I asked him, "My God, they're purple and green. Do fish really take these lures?" And he said, "Mister, I don't sell to fish." Investment managers are in the position of that fishing tackle salesman.

If it happens every year like clockwork, what's so extraordinary about it?