We favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible; we scorn the abstract.

Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.

At no point in history have so many non-risk-takers, that is, those with no personal exposure, exerted so much control.

Never ask a trader if he is profitable: you can easily see it in his gesture and gait.

Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

Never take advice from someone wearing a tie.

If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.