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" The modern Berkshire Hathaway that he had created churned out new beads for the rosary almost like a clockwork. Buffett’s hunt for things to buy had become more ambitious, free of the cigar butts and lawsuits of the decades before. The great engine of compounding worked as a servant on his behalf, at exponential speed and under the gathering approval of a public gaze. The method was the same: estimate an investment’s intrinsic value, handicap its risk, buy using margin of safety, concentrate, stay in the circle of competence, let it roll as compounding did the work. Anyone could understand these simple ideas, but few could execute them. Even though Buffett made the process look effortless, the technique and discipline underlying it actually did involve an enormous amount of work for him and his employees. As "
― Alice Schroeder , The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
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" When I was sixteen, I had just two things on my mind—girls and cars,” Buffett would say, taking a little poetic license here by leaving out the part about the money. “I wasn’t very good with girls. So I thought about cars. I thought about girls, too, but I had more luck with cars. “Let’s say that when I turned sixteen, a genie had appeared to me. And that genie said, ‘Warren, I’m going to give you the car of your choice. It’ll be here tomorrow morning with a big bow tied on it. Brand-new. And it’s all yours.’ “Having heard all the genie stories, I would say, ‘What’s the catch?’ And the genie would answer, ‘There’s only one catch. This is the last car you’re ever going to get in your life. So it’s got to last a lifetime. "
― Alice Schroeder , The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
