If you do smart things and use leverage and do one wrong thing along the way, it could wipe you out, because anything times zero is zero. But it's reinforcing when the people around you are doing it successfully, you're doing it successfully, and it's a lot like Cinderella at the ball.

The rest of the world really likes our stuff pretty well. It's just we buy so damn much of what they produce.

Our approach is very much profiting from lack of change rather than from change. With Wrigley chewing gum, it's the lack of change that appeals to me. I don't think it is going to be hurt by the Internet. That's the kind of business I like.

Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.

Beware [of] the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns.

[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.

The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting.