My highlights from the book:
1. The fatigue of the climb was great but it is interesting to learn once more how much further one can go on one’s second wind. I think that is an important lesson for everyone to learn for it should also be applied to one’s mental efforts. Most people go through life without ever discovering the existence of that whole field of endeavor which we describe as second wind. Whether mentally or physically occupied most people give up at the first appearance of exhaustion. Thus they never learn the glory and the exhilaration of genuine effort.
2. When an idea is right, nothing can stop it.
3. My father wrote back with one of the simplest and best precepts for parents to live by that I have ever read. It meant a lot to me then, as it does today: “What parents may sometimes do in a helpful way is to point out certain principles of action. I do not think I would be helpful in advising you too strongly. I do not even feel the need of doing that because I have so much confidence in your having really good judgment. I believe that what I can do for you once in a while is to point out certain principles that have developed in my mind as sound and practical, leaving it for you yourself to apply them if your own mind grasps and approves the principles.”
4. In one exchange between us, I had deplored the fact that we had the bad luck to live in a world with Hitler, to which Phil responded, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a privilege to have to fight the biggest son of a bitch in history.”
5. Phil became one of the Post’s best ad salesman, often writing letters to company executives around the country giving forceful evidence for why the Post was a logical, cost-effective choice for their advertising dollars.
6. One night, a week or so after the takeover, I woke up at two in the morning to find Phil finishing a book on the lives and careers of newspaper magnates Colonel McCormick and Joe Patterson. Phil said, “You know, they put the company together when they were in their thirties. Now they’re in their sixties and I’m in my thirties. I think we can make it another way.” With that simple conclusion, Phil got over the terrible blow of being defeated in a deal on which we thought our life depended.
7. There is no doubt in my mind that the struggle to survive was good for us. In business, you have to know what it is to be poor and stretched and fighting for your life against great odds.
8. Sometimes you don’t really decide, you just move forward, and that is what I did—moved forward blindly and mindlessly into a new and unknown life.
9. I made mistakes and suffered great distress from them, partly because I believed that if you just worked diligently enough you wouldn’t make mistakes. I truly believed that other people in my position didn’t make mistakes; I couldn’t see that everybody makes them, even people with great experience.
10. In its field, Disney simply was the finest—hands down. Anything that didn’t reflect his best efforts—anything that might leave the customer feeling short-changed—just wasn’t acceptable to Walt Disney. He melded energetic creativity with a discipline regarding profitability, and achieved something unique in entertainment. I feel the same way about The Washington Post. —Warren Buffett
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