We have this culture of financialization. People think they need to make money with their savings rather with their own business. So you end up with dentists who are more traders than dentists. A dentist should drill teeth and use whatever he does in the stock market for entertainment.
Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
Deficits are like putting dynamite in the hands of children. They can get out of control very quickly.
Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus.
The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.
I lift heavy weights and sprint, but I am so bad at it that I develop severe injuries.
I'm a private intellectual, not a public one.
Inequalities of wealth lead to a dispersion in wealth for all.
You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend, no admirer and no partner will flatter you with as much curiosity.
The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.
I don't read the papers; I stopped reading the papers. I read the papers only during periods of crisis, and I think papers are too long on a regular day and too short days when we have a crisis.
What America does best is produce the ability to accept failure.
A country's assets reside in the tinkerers, the hobbyists, and the risk-takers.
People have the problem of denial. This is one of the things I learned in Lebanon. Everybody who left Beirut when the war started, including my parents, said, 'Oh, its temporary.' It lasted 17 years! People tend to underestimate the gravity of these situations. That's how they work.
Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.
The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.
I am happy everywhere except in places where I see glitz and rich farts. I am happiest in Brooklyn, where the concentration of rich farts is minimal.
I select a very small number of things to be sceptical about, such as markets, and on these I am hypersceptic. But I want to be fooled by randomness in art. I want the ceremonial of religion; we are made for it.
