"The farm bill, steel tariffs, anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber and quotas on textiles from China are all examples of principles waived to garner votes ... Protecting the few at the expense of the many is always a bad idea, whether it's steel producers, textile workers or loggers."

"Trade sanctions raise the prices of goods to consumers. Apparel prices, which have been falling on a year-over-year basis consistently since 1998, have turned up in the past five months. Applying the equivalent of another hidden tax to an already highly protected industry will only exacerbate the trend. Policy for the few comes with a cost. Ultimately it's consumers who bear the burden of higher prices and reduced choice."

"... I always wanted to be free to do what I liked to do. When I was a kid I enjoyed delivering papers. I still enjoy delivering papers. I go out with my grandson to deliver papers. I like to throw papers. But one of the things I liked about delivering papers was that I could think about things I wanted to think about while I delivered papers."

"[The Intelligent Investor] gave me the framework for thinking about business and investments, and I haven't changed it. Having the right framework is the important thing. There are all kinds of people with high IQs in the investment business and most of them flame out. They don't do that well over time because they don't have a base from which to operate. Everything we do around here is rational. We make mistakes, but we operate rationally and that will take you a long way."

"Usually in any negotiation people on both sides are dealing with something very real to them. On executive compensation, the CEO, the compensation is very real to him, but to the comp committee, to the directors, it's play money. There's never been such a transfer of wealth in our history. And it's obscene."

Buffett bought huge stakes at times when [the companies] were either unfashionable in financial circles or were in difficulties, or both, and has reaped commensurately huge rewards. By way of example, Buffett bought 18 per cent of the Washington Post for US$11 million in 1973. That stake is now worth US$1.3 billion."

"In the years after he left CBS, Mr. Tisch appeared in the business press mainly because of his extremely bearish positions on a stock market that rose spectacularly throughout the 1990's. Betting steadily against the market by shorting equities and future contracts on the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and by buying put options on the S. & P., Mr. Tisch recorded some $2 billion in trading losses for Loews."