I talked to one accountant, a very nice fellow who I would have been glad to have his family marry into mine. He said, "What these other accounting firms have done is very unethical. The [tax avoidance scheme] works best if it's not found out [by the IRS], so we only give it to our best clients, not the rest, so it's unlikely to be discovered. So my firm is better than the others." [Laughter] I'm not kidding. And he was a perfectly nice man. People just follow the crowd...Their mind just drifts off in a ghastly way.

Size will hurt returns. Look at Berkshire Hathaway - the last five things Warren has done have generated returns that are splendid by historical standards, but now give him $100 billion in assets and measure outcomes across all of it, it doesn't look so good. We can only buy big positions, and the only time we can get big positions is during a horrible period of decline or stasis. That really doesn't happen very often.

An idea or a fact is not worth more merely because it's more available to you.

The Berkshire-style investors tend to be less diversified than other people. The academics have done a terrible disservice to intelligent investors by glorifying the idea of diversification. Because I just think the whole concept is literally almost insane. It emphasizes feeling good about not having your investment results depart very much from average investment results. But why would you get on the bandwagon like that if somebody didn't make you with a whip and a gun?

I'm proud to be associated with the value system at Berkshire Hathaway; I think you'll make more money in the end with good ethics than bad.

If you turn on the television, you'll find the mothers of the most obvious criminals that man could ever diagnose, and they all think their sons are innocent. That's simple psychological denial. The reality is too painful to bear, so you just distort it until it's bearable. We all do that to some extent, and it's a common psychological misjudgment that causes terrible problems.

Those of us who have been very fortunate have a duty to give back. Whether one gives a lot as one goes along as I do or a little and then a lot [when one dies] as Warrendoes is a matter of personal preference. I would hate to have people ask me for money all day long.