John Maynard Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate.

Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay.

I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust, and admire.

A lot of great fortunes in the world have been made by owning a single wonderful business. If you understand the business, you don't need to own very many of them.

It isn't given to man to be able to run a financial institution where different interest-rate scenarios will prevail on all of that so as to produce kind of smooth, regular earnings from a very large base to start with.

We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.

In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.