Ron Suskind

A boy, if he's lucky, discovers his limitations across a leisurely passage of years, with a self-awareness arriving slowly. That way, at least he has plenty of time to heroically imagine himself first. Most boys unfold in this natural, measured way, growing up with at least one adult on the scene who can convincingly fake being all-powerful, omniscient, and unfailingly protective for a kid's first decade or so, providing an invaluable canopy of reachable stars and monsters that are comfortably make-believe.

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

Security is by far the city's predominant business.

These were lobbyists__any of them compensated quite handsomely not to react as human beings.

I'm [Paul O'Neill] an old guy, and I'm rich. And there's nothing they can do to hurt me.

If the breadth of perspectives is wide enough to represent the fullest range of views, consensus is unlikely. If consensus is swiftly achieved, it probably means too few voices have been heard.

It is one thing to rouse the passion of a people, and quite another to lead them.

It's exciting to work with the kids so devoid of irony, so unguarded. And also terrifying.

Push the needle into some middle range of guarded optimism.

Trust is something you have to practice. Someday you're going to fall in love with someone, and you need to understand what trust is all about. What you doing now is developing bad practices of betraying people's trust.

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.

He is now judging himself, harshly, by his captors' rules.

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.

Choose your words meticulously and then let them rumble up from some deep furnace of conviction.

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.

When a precious secret is collected It tends to glow in the darkness. Placed in daylight, fitted along a wide landscape of fact, it often loses its brilliance.

Civilizations rise and fall on confidence. America had figured out a way to borrow money to manufacture it.

If the opposite of certainty is doubt, humility must lie somewhere between the two,