If you have a harem of 40 women, you never get to know any of them very well.

It isn't given to man to be able to run a financial institution where different interest-rate scenarios will prevail on all of that so as to produce kind of smooth, regular earnings from a very large base to start with.

What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history.

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

... but the important thing is that when you do find one where you really do know what you are doing, you must buy in quantity.... Charlie and I have made a dozen or so very big decisions relative to net worth, although not as big as they should have been. And in each of those, we've known that we were almost certain to be right going in.

[The U.S. Treasury] can borrow basically unlimited amounts. They can stay there for years and years. These assets will be worth more money over time. So when Merrill Lynch sells a bunch of mortgage-related assets at 22 cents on the dollar like they did a month or so ago, the buyer goes - is going to make money, and he's going to make a lot more money if it happens to be an institution like the U.S. government which has very, very cheap borrowing costs.

I put heavy weight on certainty. It's not risky to buy securities at a fraction of what they're worth.