Jacks are home runs. So are dongs, bombs, and big flies. Baseball people express their fondness for a thing by thinking up lots of different ways to say 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.

Allow yourself to see the good in people. Not every sinister face harbors a wicked heart.

I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.

Save me from the things that I love.

What's the most important thing in the world? It's love, and I look at that as an energy, not a sentiment.

Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose

When you're building a business or joining a company you have to be transparent, you can't have two sets of information for two sets of people.

Moving on doesn't mean forgetting.

When there are no conflicts In you, between material wealth and spiritual life, you have found yourself.

A boxing match is like a cowboy movie. There's got to be good guys and there's got to be bad guys. And that's what people pay for - to see the bad guys get beat.

What becomes fascinating is the way the culture industry doesn't deny it and doesn't try to mitigate it, but tries to sell its products as a way of liberating oneself.