We also believe in straight-talking, telling it as it is, using simple language that people understand, telling people about the downsides as well as the potential upsides, and even telling the bad news that no one wants to utter, like our lack of belief in the sustainability of the Icelandic financial sector that already we had months before the collapse hit us.

They were blocked in their minds to do this because they thought, oh this is not done, we don’t do that in our field and you can’t do that, and I said: Why not?

Charlie and I decided long ago that in an investment lifetime it's just too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. That judgment became ever more compelling as Berkshire's capital mushroomed and the universe of investments that could significantly affect our results shrank dramatically. Therefore, we adopted a strategy that required our being smart - and not too smart at that - only a very few times. Indeed, we'll now settle for one good idea a year. (Charlie says it's my turn.)

One option was to sell Patagonia and donate all the money. But we couldn't be sure a new owner would maintain our values or keep our team of people around the world employed. Another path was to take the company public. What a disaster that would have been. Even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility. Truth be told, there were no good options available. So, we created our own.

Sensitivity. Be sensitive in every way possible about everything in life. Be sensitive. Insensitivity brings indifference and nothing is worse than indifference. Indifference makes that person dead before the person dies.

After the war — I was 15 when I entered the camp, I was 16 when I left it, and all of a sudden you become an orphan and you have no one. I had a little sister and I knew, with my mother the first night, that they were swept away by fire. My older sisters I discovered by accident after the war in Paris, where I was in an orphanage. But to be an orphan — you can become an orphan at 50, you are still an orphan. Very often I think of my father and my mother. At any important moment in my life, they are there, thinking, “What an injustice.”

I remember the awakening that occurred in me when I read, for the first time, Franz Kafka. ... That morning I was happy. I wanted to run out and embrace them, all these garbage collectors, because they taught me that there was another world than the world of Kafka, which is absurd and desperate, and despairing.

Well, naturally, my grandfather. He was a Hasid, meaning a member of the Hasidic community, and I loved him, I adored him. So thanks to him, I became a Hasid too. And my mother — who actually continued his tradition — she’s the one who brought me to Hasidic Masters. And all the stories I tell now — I’ve written so many books with Hasidic tales — these are not mine, these are theirs, my mother’s and my grandfather’s. My father taught me how to reason, how to reach my mind. My soul belonged to my grandfather and my mother. They enriched me, of course. They influenced me profoundly, to this day. When I write, I have the feeling, literally, physically, that one of them is behind my back, looking over my shoulder and reading what I’m writing. I’m terribly afraid of their judgment.