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Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline.

What we need to understand is, one, that there are market failures; and two, that there are things like asset bubbles and irrational exuberance. There are periods of booms, bubbles, and manias. These things, if left to themselves, can lead to crashes, to busts, to panics.

It's only when the markets are perceived to have exhausted themselves on the downside that they turn. Trying to prevent them from going down just merely prolongs the agony.

If you're saving for the long run, it's actually a good thing when the market is down because the more shares you have, the more you can potentially make when markets rise. And over time - decades, not months - the markets rise more than they fall.

In a crisis, markets always look to see who is the next-worst off and proactively begin shying away from them.

The stock market can be down, but the stock market is not an indication of where people's spirits and enthusiam are, and where their intellectual energy is.

The chief problem with the individual investor: He or she typically buys when the market is high and thinks it's going to go up, and sells when the market is low and thinks it's going to go down.

Like a bank run, a decline in stock prices creates its own momentum.

You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don't understand that's going to happen, then you're not ready, you won't do well in the markets.

The stock market to me was like a video game. When it went off, it was like turning the game off. It wasn't something I'd think about until I'd turn the machine on again.