I think that, every time you saw the word EBITDA, you should substitute the word "bullshit" earnings.

Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company's owners are slim at best.

Whenever you think something or some person is ruining your life, it's you. A victimization mentality is so debilitating.

It is way less certain to be a wonderful business in the future. The threat is alternative mediums of information. Every newspaper is scrambling to parlay their existing advantage into dominance on the Internet. But it is way less sure [that this will occur] than the certainty 20 years ago that the basic business would grow steadily, so there's more downside risk. The perfectly fabulous economics of this business could become grievously impaired.

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.

The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can't beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That's just the way it is.

Personally, I’ve gotten so that I now use a kind of two-track analysis. First, what are the factors that really govern the interests involved, rationally considered? And second, what are the subconscious influences where the brain at a subconscious level is automatically conclusions in various ways — which, by and large, are useful — but which often malfunction? One approach is rationality… And the other is to evaluate the psychological factors that cause subconscious conclusions — many of which are wrong.