A banking system is an act of faith: it survives only for as long as people believe it will.

Baseball is this intense subculture that actually doesn't speak very much for the larger culture.

The pleasure of rooting for Goliath is that you can expect to win. The pleasure of rooting for David is that, while you don’t know what to expect, you stand at least a chance of being inspired.

As idiotic as optimism can sometimes seem, it has a weird habit of paying off.

When you're trying to create a career as a writer, a little delusional thinking goes a long way.

In Japan, mothers insist on achievement and accomplishment as a sign of love and respect. Thus to fail places children in a highly shamed situation.

Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.

A credit default swap was confusing mainly because it wasn't really a swap at all. It was an insurance policy, typically on a corporate bond, with semiannual premium payments and a fixed term.

One absolutely cannot tell, by watching, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter. The difference is one hit every two weeks.

People don't like uncertainty, and their minds are tools for making sense of the world, even when the world is senseless.

People dislike uncertainty so much that they will impose an order on it even when it doesn't exist.

Challenge everything for the Truth. Only those who challenge everything for the Truth are the blessed ones.

Waiting is not wasting. It is a strategy for champing for greater things.

The church grew very lonely about him, and he began to feel like a child whose mother has forsaken it. Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.

I'm definitely attracted to other Australians I have a laid-back attitude to life that I feel is very Australian I love a good barbie.

I know people who grow old and bitter. I want to keep making a fresh start. I don't want them to defeat me. That would be suicidal.

There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity.

I live in a small country in Europe - Finland - and I don't speak English well and I had nothing to do with publishing houses in the West. I lived in complete isolation.

Senator [Bernie] Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment.

Sometimes go around with guys who are scuffling -- for awhile. But usually they end up marrying some cat with a factory. This is the way world ends, not with a whim but a banker.

It's so hard to be a mother and to also want to practice your art.