Black-Scholes works for short-term options, but if it's a long-term option and you think you know something [about the underlying asset], it's insane to use Black-Scholes.

The more hard lessons you can learn vicariously rather than through your own hard experience, the better.

I don't spend much time regretting the past, once I've taken my lesson from it. I don't dwell on it.

Clever derivatives broke dozens of companies. It killed them. Bankrupt. We don't need these kinds of innovation in finance. It's OK to be boring in finance. What we want is innovation in widgets.

We have a passion for keeping things simple.

Look at those hedge funds - you think they can wait? They don't know how to wait! I have sat for years at a time with $10 to $12 million in treasuries or municipals, just waiting, waiting...As Jesse Livermore said, 'The big money is not in the buying and selling...but in the waiting.'

This is an amazingly sound place. We are more disaster-resistant than most other places. We haven't pushed it as hard as other people would have pushed it. I don't want to go back to Go. I've been to Go. A lot of our shareholders have a majority of their net worth in Berkshire, and they don't want to go back to Go either.