Cicero's words also increased my personal satisfaction by supporting my long-standing rejection of a conventional point of view.

Berkshireis not as good as it was in terms of percentage compounding [going forward], but it's still a hell of a business.

There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash — and I don’t want to go back.

The SEC does way more good than harm - the last thing I would do is get rid of the SEC...if accounting were thoroughly fixed, a lot of other sins would go away. We're paying a huge price for deterioration of accounting.

Where you have complexity, by nature you can have fraud and mistakes. You'll have more of that than in a company that shovels sand from a river and sells it. This will always be true of financial companies, including ones run by governments. If you want accurate numbers from financial companies, you're in the wrong world.

If only I had the influence with my wife and children that I have in some other quarters!

It's human nature to extrapolate the recent past into the future, but it's terrible that managements go along with this.