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.

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.

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.

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

Tell them that as soon as I can walk I'm going to fly!

We're telling a story. And the demands of that are different from the demands of a documentary. The audience must believe in order to keep faith in the story.

I read what I feel, and not what I see.

Love is the essential existential fact. It is our ultimate reality and our purpose on earth.

Every great general and warrior from the beginning of time was high.

The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum fortune; it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick.

I know every movement of my kitchen.

Look at somebody like Drake, the guy is one of the most vulnerable. He says exactly what's on his mind and that's why I respect him.

No one can make me work harder than I do, so I'm generally not interested in who I am competing with.

The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found but must forever seek as an Ideal