The financial calculus that Charlie and I employ would never permit our trading a good night's sleep for a shot at a few extra percentage points of return. I've never believed in risking what my friends and family have and need in order to pursue what they don't have and don't need.

But 300 million Americans, their lending institutions, their government, their media, all believed that house prices were going to go up consistently. And that got billed into a $20 trillion residential home market. Lending was done based on it, and everybody did a lot of foolish things.

Failure comes from ego, greed, envy, fear, imitation. I have success not because I am smart, but because I am rational.

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

We do not have, nor have had, and never will have an opinion about where the stock market, interest rates, or business activity will be a year from now.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

I have this complicated procedure I go through every morning, which is to look in the mirror and decide what I'm going to do. And I feel at that point, everybody's had their say.