Charlie Munger is known for his quick wit and sense of humor, and one of the best sources of Munger’s humorous quotes is Poor Charlie’s Almanack. Here are fourteen of Munger’s funniest quotes from the book:
1. I’d rather throw a viper down my shirt front than hire a compensation consultant.
2. When asked at a cocktail party whether he played the piano, Charlie replied, “I don’t know, I’ve never tried.”
3. I always like it when someone attractive to me agrees with me, so I have fond memories of Phil Fisher.
4. It is, of course, normal for self-appraisal to be more positive than external appraisal. Indeed, a problem of this sort may have given you your speaker today.
5. When you mix raisins and turds, you’ve still got turds. [Comparing the benefits that the Internet and technology are providing to society versus the evils of stock speculation in these sectors.]
6. In the corporate world, if you have analysts, due diligence, and no horse sense, you’ve just described hell.
7. It’s been so long since we’ve bought anything that [asking us about our market impact when we’re trading] is like asking Rip Van Winkle about the past twenty years.
8. When I first moved to California, there was a part-time legislature that was controlled by gambling interests, racetrack owners, and liquor distributors, who wined and dined the legislators, supplied them with prostitutes, etc. I think I prefer that to today’s full-time legislature.
9. [On the book Deep Simplicity], it’s pretty hard to understand everything, but if you can’t understand it, you can always give it to a more intelligent friend.
10. If you rise in life, you have to behave in a certain way. You can go to a strip club if you’re a beer-swilling sand shoveler, but if you’re the bishop of Boston, you shouldn’t go.
11. I think the people who are attracted to be prison guards are not nature ‘s noblemen to begin with.
12. You don’t want to be like the motion picture executive who had many people at his funeral, but they were there just to make sure he was dead. Or how about the guy who, at his funeral, the priest said, “Won’t anyone stand up and say anything nice about the deceased?” and finally someone said, “Well, his brother was worse.”
13. [Responding to a question at the 1999 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting about the year 2000 compliance issue, Munger replied:] I find it interesting that there is such a problem. You know, it was predictable that the year 2000 would come.
14. Ben Franklin was a very good ambassador, and whatever was wrong with him from John Adams’ point of view [I’m sure] helped him with the French.
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