Our experience tends to confirm a long-held notion that being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale, in doing some simple and logical thing, will often dramatically improve the financial results of that lifetime.

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest - sometimes not even the most diligent. But they are learning machines; they go to bed every night a little wiser than when they got up. And, boy, does that habit help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

My idea of a good place to shop is Costco - it has these heavily marbled fillet steaks. The idea of eating some wheat thing and washing it down with carrot juice has never appealed to me.

I think liberal art faculties at major universities have views that are not very sound, at least on public policy issues - they may know a lot of French however.

I think there's an awful lot of twaddle and bullshit on EVA. The whole game is to turn retained earnings into more earnings. EVA has ideas about cost of capital that make no sense. Of course, if a company generates high returns on capital and can maintain this over time, it will do well. But the mental system as a whole does not work.

Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets - and can be lost in a heartbeat.