It's almost impossible to overpay the truly extraordinary CEO... but the species is rare.

I mean, we'll be pounding on the guy's chest, you know, on the floor, and you know, he's not going to just jump up all of a sudden. So it makes it tough. I mean, it's tough to be in the legislature, you know, and vote for something and then people say, well, you voted all this money and you know, it's all getting spent. It isn't getting spent. It's getting invested. But it's all getting spent. Nothing's happening.

I would say the biggest single cause was we had an incredible residential real estate bubble.

Money is not everything. Make sure you earn a lot before speaking such nonsense.

Never do anything in life if you would be ashamed of seeing it printed on the front page of your hometown newspaper for your friends and family to see.

I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material.

We set no volume goals in our insurance business generally-and certainly not in reinsurance-as virtually any volume can be achieved if profitability standards are ignored.