“A foreign correspondent, after talking to me for a while, once said: “You don’t seem smart enough to be so good at what you’re doing. Do you have an explanation?””

The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can’t beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That’s just the way it is.

To me, it’s obvious that the winner has to bet very selectively. It’s been obvious to me since very early in life. I don’t know why it’s not obvious to very many other people.

Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.

Common stock investors can make money by predicting the outcomes of practice evolution. You can’t derive this by fundamental analysis – you must think biologically.

When you locate a bargain, you must ask, ‘Why me, God? Why am I the only one who could find this bargain?’

All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.

Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.

Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass.

Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something. This is such a no-brainer.

Your life must focus on the maximization of objectivity.

I like people admitting they were complete stupid horses’ asses. I know I’ll perform better if I rub my nose in my mistakes. This is a wonderful trick to learn.

The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.

Our experience tends to confirm a long-held notion that being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale, in doing some simple and logical thing, will often dramatically improve the financial results of that lifetime.

To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash — and I don’t want to go back.

Why should it be easy to do something that, if done well, two or three times, will make your family rich for life?

I was always annoyed by too much explaining.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

You don’t have to explain something you never said.

Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain.

You don’t need to explain why you’re protecting your soul from harm. You really don’t.

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.

I am always trying to convey something that can’t be conveyed, to explain something which is inexplicable, to tell about something I have in my bones, something which can be expressed only in the bones.