You've got to have models in your head and you've got to array you experience - both vicarious and direct - onto this latticework of mental models.

The game is to keep learning, and I don't think people are going to keep learning who don't like the learning process.

It's been my experience in life if you just keep thinking and reading, you don't have to work.

You'll better understand the evil when top audit firms started selling fraudulent tax shelters when I tell you that one told me that they're better [than the others] because they only sold [the schemes] to their top-20 clients, so no-one would notice.

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.

To us, investing is the equivalent of going out and betting against the pari-mutuel system. We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning, and that pays three to one. In other words, we're looking for a mispriced gamble. That's what investing is, and you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced.

If you can buy the best companies, over time the pricing takes care of itself.