[Economy] is flat on the floor, and the paramedics have arrived. And they shouldn't argue about whether they put the resuscitation equipment a quarter of an inch this way or a quarter of an inch this way, or they shouldn't start criticizing the patient, because he didn't have a blood pressure test or something like that. They should do what's needed right now.

Our marketable equities tell us by their operating results - not by their daily, or even yearly, price quotations - whether our investments are successful. The market may ignore business success for a while, but eventually will confirm it.

The [stock] market,like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.

To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. You must supply the emotional discipline.

I mean you know at midnight everything is going to turn to pumpkins and mice; right? But if the evening goes along, I mean, you know, the guys look better all the time, the music sounds better, it's more and more fun, you think why the hell should I leave at quarter of 12. I'll leave at two minutes to 12. But the trouble is, there are no clocks on the wall. And everybody thinks they're going to leave at two minutes to 12.

It's a nightmare to administer some of this sort of thing, but I want to tell the shareholders of Berkshire, to the percent we own marketable securities or things for which there are market, even if those markets - I want to tell them what it's all about.

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.