Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.

I've learned mainly by reading myself. So I don't think I have any original ideas. Certainly, I talk about reading Graham. I've read Phil Fisher. So I've gotten a lot of my ideas from reading. You can learn a lot from other people. In fact, I think if you learn basically from other people, you don't have to get too many new ideas on your own. You can just apply the best of what you see.

I don't want to be on the other side of the table from the customer. I was never selling anything that I didn't believe in myself or use myself.

We look for things I can understand. A lot of businesses I don't understand.

I don't really think that, as a society, we [americans] want to confer blessings on generation after generation who contribute nothing to society, simply because somebody in the far distant past happened to amass a great sum of wealth.

A lot of people disagree with me on this, I believe in mark to market.

Our favorite holding period is forever.