The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.

I think what people understand there probably - well, they were hoping the private sector would do it [rescuing AIG ].

Many stock options in the corporate world have worked in exactly that fashion: they have gained in value simply because management retained earnings, not because it did well with the capital in its hands.

I mean there is no capital requirements to it or anything of the sort. And basically, I said there were possibly financial weapons of mass destruction, and they had them. They destroyed AIG. They certainly contributed to the destruction of Bear Sterns and Lehman. Although Lehman had other problems, too.

It is to our advantage to have securities do nothing price-wise for months, or perhaps years, while we are buying them.

If book knowledge made great investors, than the librarians would all be rich.

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.