It is an unfortunate fact that great and foolish excess can come into prices of common stocks in the aggregate. They are valued partly like bonds, based on roughly rational projections of use value in producing future cash. But they are also valued partly like Rembrandt paintings, purchased mostly because their prices have gone up, so far.

Litigation is notoriously time-consuming, inefficient, costly and unpredictable.

We regard using [a stock's] volatility as a measure of risk is nuts. Risk to us is 1) the risk of permanent loss of capital, or 2) the risk of inadequate return. Some great businesses have very volatile returns - for example, See's [a candy company owned by Berkshire] usually loses money in two quarters of each year - and some terrible businesses can have steady results.

If mutual fund directors are independent, then I'm the lead character in the Bolshoi Ballet.

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

Capitalism is a pretty brutal place.

Anyone with an engineering frame of mind will look at [accounting standards] and want to throw up.