To me, it's obvious that the winner has to bet very selectively. It's been obvious to me since very early in life. I don't know why it's not obvious to very many other people.

Why should it be easy to do something that, if done well, two or three times, will make your family rich for life?

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.

There's a lot wrong [with American universities]. I'd remove 3/4 of the faculty - everything but the hard sciences. But nobody's going to do that, so we'll have to live with the defects. It's amazing how wrongheaded [the teaching is]. There is fatal disconnectedness. You have these squirrelly people in each department who don't see the big picture.

...being an effective teacher is a high calling.

The basic concept of value to a private owner and being motivated when you're buying and selling securities by reference to intrinsic value instead of price momentum - I don't think that will ever be outdated.

It's not the bad ideas that do you in, but the good ones.