foodstuffs absolved of the obligation to provide vitamins and minerals cavorted with reckless abandon.

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.

It's our faith that activates the power of God.

There is so much pressure on us to try to overcome boredom by spending time on frivolities.

Tell me, who in this life, were never guided in course of their realization of their goal?

I love Christmas. I'm totally the 'decorate early, start listening to Christmas songs super-early' guy.

I only want to sleep . . . and never wake.

I love acting and don't find it to be very hard. I recognize when I've nailed it, and I can be very proud of myself.

I guess I always have sort of general ideas, but the best stuff would be the stuff that comes to you in the moment, always.

No man's body is as strong as his appetites, but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strength and contracting his capacities.

If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.

Love is a tyrant sparing none.