We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. [...] We take what we know a little too seriously.

Ideas come and go, stories stay.

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.

It might be useful to be able to predict war. But tension does not necessarily lead to war, but often to peace and to denouement.

The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia; the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.

If I ask you to write down the last 4 digits of your social security number, and then take you out to lunch and ask you how many dentists there are in Manhattan, there's going to be a high correlation between those two numbers. What happens is that the number psychologically makes you feel confident.

If my detractors knew me better they would hate me even more.