Hollywood would much prefer the author be dead, so that they can buy the book and do what they want to do with it.

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.

Can't you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on the bridge, has been to bring myself closer to you.

. . . Absurdism was really just realism seen from close to the bottom.

Maturity is the ability to make a decision and stand by it.

Stories are the only thing that I can be bothered with. Its the only way that I can do anything, even if Im quite useless. Its the only area in being human where I could be a little useful.

But why should I cast myself in the ancient female part of victim of men's plots and passions?

I just find that the harder you work and the more effort you put into yourself, the better you'll be.

Paying attention and awareness are universal capacities of human beings.

There is no way you can use the word “reality” without quotation marks around it.

If you are sure you are right, you need not worry what the world thinks.

Contrasting styles is always the most fun to watch