Warren Buffett Speaks - Wit and Wisdom of the World's Greatest Investor

Lowe collected quotations from Buffett drawn from shareholder letters, annual meeting transcripts, interviews and speeches, and organised them by subject with brief connecting commentary. The categories cover his early life and Omaha, his views on business, his investment principles, his opinions on Wall Street, management, taxation, inheritance and philanthropy.

The book supplies the quotable Buffett rather than the analytical one. Familiar formulations appear here in their original context, including his remarks on the margin of safety, on the difference between price and value, on the institutional imperative, on why he prefers businesses that a fool could run, on the effect of costs and activity on investor returns, and on his intention not to leave large fortunes to his children.

Lowe's commentary is light and biographical rather than interpretive.

The limitation is straightforward. Buffett's shareholder letters are freely published and Lawrence Cunningham's arranged edition of them organises the same material with the reasoning attached. A quotation collection strips the argument from the conclusion, which suits browsing but not study. The book is also from 1997 and predates most of Berkshire's later acquisitions, its scale problems, and Buffett's later positions on technology holdings and on succession.

American financial journalist and biographer of Charlie Munger, Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett and Bill Miller.

Damn Right! is the standard full-length life of Charlie Munger, built from interviews with Munger, his family and his partners, and the Graham volumes put writings and lectures that had gone out of print back in circulation. The books supply the biographical record behind quotations that circulate everywhere else without sources.