Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that "Price is what you pay; value is what you get." Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

The real fortunes in this country have been made by people who have been right about the business they invested in, and not right about the timing of the stock market.

You have to be able to communicate in life and probably schools underemphasize that. If you can't talk to people or write, you're giving up your potential.

There's nothing inappropriate about having debt in America. It's what helped us grow over time. And it's when debt gets out of control that you worry.

There are three important principles to Graham's approach. [The first is to look at stocks as fractional shares of a business, which] gives you an entirely different view than most people who are in the market. [The second principle is the margin-of-safety concept, which] gives you the competitive advantage. [The third is having a true investor's attitude toward the stock market, which] if you have that attitude, you start out ahead of 99 percent of all the people who are operating in the stock market - it's an enormous advantage.

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

All but a few of the organizations do not specifically promise to deliver superior investment performance although it is perhaps not unreasonable for the public to draw such an inference from their advertised emphasis on professional management.