Here was a strange but true fact: The closer you were to the market, the harder it was to perceive its folly.

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.

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

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.

I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown of my feet by any.

Conflict. Conflict. Where art thou conflict?

Science is a self-correcting discipline that can, in subsequent generations, show that previous ideas were not correct.

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

[Tyler Perry] has the luxury of not doing the political stuff, which is really where I want to be as a company.

I don't know what the outcome will be. I put a couple away for my grandkids, like that. So I don't know, who knows? Maybe I'll start building guitars for a living.

You don't have to get in or out of a position all at once. Avoid the temptation of wanting to be completely right.

You can't control the success or failure of a thing you work on. You can only control the thing you work on.

Certitude is not the test of certainty.