Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that.

Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer.

You want to favor systems that benefit from error, disorder, variability and things like that. You want to favor these systems and unfortunately, when - there's something I call the Soviet Illusion. The more the government becomes intrusive, the more things have to follow a script, and it can't handle this kind of system.

Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.

Also, it's good to have more than one profession, in case your own profession goes out of style. A Wall Street trader who's also a belly dancer will do a lot better than a trader who winds up driving a taxi.

A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point.

My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the next time the system breaks, it breaks much, much bigger.