I think there's something to be said for developing the disposition to own stocks without fretting.

How do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.

There are two kinds of businesses: The first earns 12%, and you can take it out at the end of the year. The second earns 12%, but all the excess cash must be reinvested - there's never any cash. It reminds me of the guy who looks at all of his equipment and says, 'There's all of my profit.' We hate that kind of business.

This is a good life lesson: getting the right people into your system is the most important thing you can do.

When it gets into these spikes, with shortages and uproar and so forth, people go bananas, but that's capitalism.

I do not think you can trust bankers to control themselves. They are like heroin addicts.

You can hire your advisor and then just apply a windage factor, like I used to do when I was a rifle shooter. I'd just adjust for so many miles an hour wind. Or you can learn the basic elements of your advisor's trade. You don't have to learn very much, by the way, because if you learn just a little then you can make him explain why he's right.