Wall Street is not being made a scapegoat for this crisis: they really did this.

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 was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.

I wanted everything from and everything for him, because I wanted every piece of him.

I didn't choose Goldberg because I wanted to be the flagship for the Jewish movement, not by any stretch of the imagination. I chose Goldberg because no one else can own it.

What's the difference between a bright, inquisitive five-year-old, and a dull, stupid nineteen-year-old? Fourteen years of the British educational system.

I founded Wang Laboratories . . . to show that Chinese could excel at things other than running laundries and restaurants.

I have very strong theories about magazine publishing. And I think that it is the most personal form of journalism. And I think that a magazine is an old friend.

It is impossible that anything will be well understood or well done that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand.

I guess you need days off, but I just didn't want them.

I'm not the guy to ask about the most up to date stuff.

Wisdom and eloquence are not always united.