The first authorized biography of Warren Buffett is being published today.  The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life was written by former insurance industry analyst Alice Schroeder with Buffett's full cooperation.  (Buffett actually selected her for the job of writing the 'inside' story of his life.)

Over a five year period, she spent thousands of hours with him and recorded 300 hours of formal interviews.

Here are some excerpts from the book, as provided by its publisher, Bantam Dell:

SNOWBALL?

Buffett: "The snowball just happens if you're in the right kind of snow, and that's what happened with me.  I don't just mean compounding money either.  It's in terms of understanding the world and what kind of friends you accumulate.  You get to select over time, and you've got to be the kind of person that the snow wants to attach itself to.  You've got to be your own wet snow, in effect.  You'd better be picking up snow as you go along, because you're not going to be getting back up to the top of the hill again.  That's the way life works."