You can't make a good deal with a bad person.
Turnarounds seldom turn.

“If you don’t know jewelry, know the jeweller.”

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don’t understand, but that doesn’t cause us to stay up at night. It just means we go on to the next one, and that’s what the individual investor should do.


I am out of step with present conditions. When the game is no longer played your way, it is only human to say the new approach is all wrong, bound to lead to trouble, and so on. On one point, however, I am clear. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand ( although I find it difficult to apply ) even though it may mean foregoing large, and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don’t fully understand, have not practiced successfully, and which possibly could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital. - 1969

If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million for that matter, I’d be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I’ve ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts then. It’s a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that. “Homespun Wisdom from the ‘Oracle of Omaha’", BusinessWeek, 5 July 1999.


No sector is a good buy unless you understand the business. However, I do believe that there is good value and great opportunity now in the financial sector because it is extremely unpopular. Sector’s themselves don’t make good buys, companies that are undervalued make good buys. You know how to value a business, you project the future cash flows discounted to present and buy with a margin of safety. The earnings prospects need to be greater than the current value. Anything that is unpopular is always great to look at. If I was getting out of school right now, I would take a look.

None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy.


-WB

From PD James "The private patient"

-His life was a mess. Some part of his nature, timid, indolent, lacking in confidence, had led him into this pattern of indecision, of leaving things to sort themselves out, as if he put faith in a benevlovent providence which would operate on his behalf if left alone.

-You surely understand one thing, the need to do what every instinct of your body tells you is ordained for you.

-Don't we all at some time or another make a decision which we know is absolutely right, the assurance that some enterprise, some change, is imperative? And even if it fails, to resist it will be a greater failure. I suppose some people would see that as a call from God.

-Life is too precious and too short to waste on people we don't care for, and much to precious to give up on love.

-A garden she could make and cherish, a useful job that she could do without strain with people she respected...

-"I like you, I respect and admire you. I'm never bored on irritated when we're together, and we share the same passion for the house, and when I return here and you're not about I feel an unease which is difficult to explain. Its a sense that there's something lacking, something missing. Can you call that love? Is it enough? It is for me, is it for you? Do you want time to think about it ?" And now she turned to him, "Asking for time would be play-acting. It is enough".

From "http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4211-business-profile-warren-buffett.html"

"You can have the greatest goals in the world," he said, "but if you have the wrong people running it, it isn’t going to work. On the other hand, if you’ve got the right person running it, almost anything is possible."

-When his first child was born, he turned a dresser drawer into the baby's bassinet and borrowed a crib for the second child. Not one for fancy cars, Buffett drove a Volkswagen until his wife upgraded him to a Lincoln Towncar. 

-"I'm happy there," he said. "I'd move if I thought I'd be happier someplace else. How would I improve my life by having 10 houses around the globe? I'm warm in the winter; I'm cool in the summer. It's convenient for me."

-"I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will."