The key is to put your outrage in a place where you can get it when you need to, but not have it bubble up so much, especially when you're asked to explain new ideas or explain what you observed two people who share none of your experiences.

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community?

You try to hold on to some notions you might have had before, that this will somehow work out, this is a spell that will lift or be broken.

These were lobbyists—many of them compensated quite handsomely not to react as human beings.

I absolutely reject that idea that the press is liberal and what it does is liberal. In my view, it's like accusing a doctor of malpractice or a lawyer of malfeasance.

Younger colleagues tended to draw untested self-confidence from their bonuses and prestigious degrees.

Summers was simply a master explainer, able to deftly boil down the complexities of economic and financial, and to put them in terms the non-expert could understand. He was brilliant at cultivating a sense of control, even as events spun far beyond what could be managed with any certainty. He could will into being the confidence that eluded others, those less self-assured and, maybe sensibly, on humbler terms with the world.