Mediocre actors leave out the most interesting gradual growth of emotion and leap directly from the piano to the fortissimo, where they remain for a long time

The cold war ended, and Soviet communism collapsed, not because Reagan made America more frightening but because he made it less so

At the core of all successful societies are procedures for blocking the advancement of bad men

According to some biblical scholars, the entire Christian doctrine of the "virgin birth" arose from mistranslation of an ancient Hebrew word into Greek

If we are slightly less able to focus because of the distractions of electronic text, I suspect it is more than made up for by the fact that we are much more likely to write out our responses to what we do read

Marketing men's fashion is tricky because, for the majority of male clothes-wearers, the goal is to convince them that it is not fashion

Craig Raine’s "Heartbreak" is a novel, in the sense in which Eton is a school near Slough

Whereas Dawkins and co. are appalled by the belief in God, Hitchens is far more appalled by the idea that anyone would want to obey Him

Macroeconomics really is just a theory. Politicians are reluctant to spend more money, in tough times, on the basis of a mere theory

In common parlance we can say that someone has “paid a price.” The revealing aspect of the phrase is that context typically indicates that the price that was paid was not calculated on market terms

Most people are surprised to hear that the world economy doubles roughly every fifteen years; when they think back fifteen years, the world doesn’t seem that different

The current situation is the product of more than eight years of chronic under-resourcing, under-reaction, spin, self-delusion and neglect. It is the result of one of the worst examples of wartime leadership in American history

This is a short book that pulls you in and spits you back out before you have time to tire of it

Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce

One of the quickest ways to find out if you are wrong is to state what you believe

If H.L. Mencken was the Sage of Baltimore, Waters is, at least, the parsley

To want to meet an author because you like his books is as ridiculous as wanting to meet the goose because you like pate de foie gras

Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing and life doesn’t

That’s the beautiful thing about working in the financial markets; eventually, stupid stuff happens

Banks don’t accidentally hold too much capital. Oil companies don’t accidentally take too many safety precautions. The mistakes only go one way