Reaching out to any fellow ghetto kids is an act he puts in the same category as doing drugs: the initial rush of warmth and euphoria puts you on a path to ruin.

Two sons, they'll both be presidents after they win their Nobel Prizes. And the daughters, they'll be prima ballerinas before they become the president of Princeton and start their Internet company. And I just started to think about What's the conventional load of those expectations you carry around? You have to pull them out one by one and smash them in the corner. You realize the pile is quite high. But in a way, it becomes oddly liberating to do that.

The substance of faith is a hope in the unseen.

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

For any thinking person, it (perpetual happiness) is untenable. If you're a thinking person, your upbeat sometimes, said sometimes.

Rapid change, accommodating it can be one of the great human capacities. But living through it can be the stuff of stress and often suffering.

Every person has their pantheon - the Bible, Hollywood, Shakespeare - their way of understanding the world.