The institutions at the centre of capitalism are bigger than they've ever been, the pay is much greater, the ability of society to get its arms around it is much less. The political clout of the financial class is unbelievable. I'd say the story is darker than when I was there. When I was there it felt like a comedy - and now it feels more like a tragedy.

My judgement is not good when I am on a book tour. I am not thinking about it that much. What happens is I will go back home. I have a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old and a wife who is now taking care of them who is wondering where her husband is.

I'd say part of the appeal of Trump is that he's presenting himself as a totally certain, infallible person.

If you have a patient in a doctor's office who's just been told they have terminal cancer but there's this operation they could perform right now that might save their lives. ... They have a 90 percent chance of surviving the operation — if you tell them that, they respond one way. If you tell them ... that they have a 10 percent chance of being killed by the operation, they are about three times less likely to have the operation.

We aren't natural statisticians. What we are is natural storytelling machines. And so what we do after we have the facts in hand is build a story to explain the facts.

Hollywood would much prefer the author be dead, so that they can buy the book and do what they want to do with it.

It's such a pain in the ass to write a book, I can't imagine writing one if I'm not interested in the subject.