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Jane Bryant Quinn
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“Lawyers [are] operators of the toll bridge across which anyone in search of justice has to pass.”
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“A faithfully kept program of savings and conservative investments can give you more money and a better life than that of your neighbors who spend everything they get. This is probably the oldest financial advice in the world, but there are some things you can't improve on.”
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“For all the huffing and puffing of the doubters, a home of our own is still the rock on which our hopes are built. Price appreciation aside (and most houses will appreciate, eventually), homeownership is a state of mind. It's your piece of the earth. It's where a family's toes grow roots. It's where the flowers are yours, not God's.”
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“Never try to time the bond market. Anyone who claims to know the future of interest rates is certifiable.”
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“Stock prices aren't real things. They're just froth on a wave. The wave is the only real thing, which investors forget when they're watching the ticket slither by.”
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“It's a fact: stock investors sometimes lose money on their way to wealth. Get over it.”
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“... hindsight is not a strategy.”
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“The shortest recorded period of time lies between the minute you put some money away for a rainy day and the unexpected arrival of rain.”
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“You don't date an annuity, you marry it. An annuity isn't a mutual fund that you buy today and sell tomorrow. Nor is it a certificate of deposit, ready for any new use at maturity. When you buy an annuity, you are making (or ought to be making) a 15- or 20-year commitment, at least.”
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“It's daring and challenging to be young and poor, but never to be old and poor. Whatever resources of good health, character, and fortitude you bring to retirement, remember, also, to bring money.”
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“Everyone said, 'You can't lose money in real estate, because they're not making any more of it.' Hmmmm. Where did everyone go wrong?”
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“Quinn's First Law of Investing is never to buy anything whose price you can't follow in the newspapers. An investment without a public marketplace attracts the fabulists the way picnics attract ants. Stock brokers and financial planners can tell you anything they want, because no one really knows what's true. The First Corollary to Quinn's First Law states that, even when the price is in the newspapers, you shouldn't buy anything too complex to explain to the average 12-year-old.”
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“No one knows what stocks will do tomorrow, but the evidence is clear as to how they'll perform over 10 or 20 years. They will almost certainly go up.”
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“There is a secret to investing that cuts a path directly to the profits that you're looking for. The secret is simplicity. The more elementary your investment style, the more confident you can be of making money in the long run.”
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“Buy a friend; hire a lawyer.”
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“Auto insurance is a toll bridge, over which every honest driver has to pass.”
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“Life insurance can be numbingly complicated. Clients often turn off their brains and surrender their judgment to the very agent or planner who brought on their coma in the first place.”
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“Savings will not make you rich. Only canny investments do that. The role of savings is to keep you from becoming poor.”
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“It seems like only yesterday that savers were dorks. They kept piggy banks. They drove last year's cars. They fished in their change purses for nickels while the superstars flashed credit cards. Today, values have changed. The new object of veneration is not money on the hoof but money in the bank — and the dorks all have it.”
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“Three reasons not to have a [spending] plan: 1. You're rich enough to buy anything you want and still have plenty of money left over. 2. I forget the other two.”
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“Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.”
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“The three immutable facts: You own stuff. You will die. Someone will get that stuff.”
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“Everyone needs a small-town banker. Especially in a big town.”
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“The bad investments pretend to be all things to all people. 'Buy me,' they whisper, 'and you'll get your three wishes — no risk, high income, and high growth.' Some throw in a fourth wish, tax deferral, just for spice. But no single investment can make all your wishes come true. Each one leans principally in a single direction. When you go for high income, you give up some safety and growth. When you go for high growth, you give up some safety and income. When you go for safety, you lose growth and income. You have to decide which matters most. Any investment that promises all three is leading you down the garden path. The financial press is loaded with warnings from saddened investors who fell for one slick promise too many. Study their stories. Better an object lesson than a learning experience.”
Jane Bryant Quinn, U.S. journalist, columnist
(1939)