A contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling.

House prices just soared beyond - beyond reason in many places and they got financed in silly ways, and people lied about loans, all kinds of accesses entered into it. But that is what - that is the single biggest cause of why we're here.

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

In earlier years, a lesser effort produced literally dozens of comparable opportunities. It is difficult to be objective about the causes for such diminution of one's own productivity. Three factors that seem apparent are: (1) a somewhat changed market environment; (2) our increased size; and (3) substantially more competition.

Never lie under any circumstances.

Investment philosophy is the clear understanding that by owning shares of stocks he owns businesses, not pieces of paper.

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