I made my first investment at age eleven. I was wasting my life up until then.

You should be unconcerned about short-term price action when you own the securities directly, just as you were unconcerned when you owned them indirectly through BPL. I think about them as businesses, not "stocks", and if the business does all right over the long term, so will the stock.

I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It cost a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's a fantastic brand loyalty.

If you're in a card game and you can't figure out who the patsy is, you're it.

You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

If you own the only newspaper in town, up until the last five years or so, you have pricing power and you didn't have to go to the office.

The latter qualification brings to mind a fellow who applied for a job and stated he had twenty years of experience-which was corrected by a former employer to read "one year's experience-twenty times.