“He was blessed with an unconventional mind, which overcame his conventional middle-class upbringing.”

“The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was a machine that turned lead into gold.”

“The men on the trading floor may not have been to school, but they have Ph.D.’s in man’s ignorance.”

“Everything, in retrospect, is obvious. But if everything were obvious, authors of histories of financial folly would be rich . . .”

“In something like an instant the man had changed his life. He reinvented his relationship to the world around him in a way that is considered normal only in California.”

“...a tourist can't help but have a distorted opinion of a place: he meets unrepresentative people, has unrepresentative experiences, and runs around imposing upon the place the fantastic mental pictures he had in his head when he got there.”

“What happens when we acknowledge the sovereignty and power of God without trusting in His goodness and faithfulness? A pitcher who saw God's power behind his extremely unlikely rise to the big leagues wondered if, at any difficulty he encountered there, God might be taking his ability away.”