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

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.

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.

Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.

Virulence is the sound of a self-selecting community talking to itself and positively reinforcing itself with no obligation to answer to anyone or look anyone in the eye.

Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.

There will be no veterans of World War III.

I love you," she said, and I knew she meant it because she spoke the words from the heart at the center of her chest. This, at least, had not been left behind at the hospital.

Vegetarianism is a healthier diet.

The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies

We represent our constituents. And so they don't get to dictate policy.

But I love you I'm totally and completely in love with you and I don't care if you think it's too late. I'm telling you anyway.

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines.