The sentimentality of baseball is very deeply rooted in the American baseball fan. It is the one sport that is transmitted from fathers to sons.

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.

Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.

A good life is the result of a thousand small choices and so is a bad one.

Energy independence is very important to me.

Paris is beautiful, but nothing beats home.

We are here to condemn the Palestinian occupation of the territories, but also to condemn the recent racist attack in France, against both Jews and Arabs.

Humans cannot find freedom until they let go of old obsolete ideas.

The essence of acting is seeing the world from another point of view. That's what acting is.

Let us learn to dream again. To learn to dream again is to have big plans. To learn to dream again is to readjust, to look to God.

What a man does for himself, dies with him. What a man does for his community lives long after he's gone.

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triump die, like fire and powder Which, as they kiss, consume