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In their leaders, advisers, and experts, people much prefer overconfidence, total certainty, to any kind of doubt.

Michael Lewis

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Michael Lewis
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: October 15
Author
Journalist
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Michael M. Lewis
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Leaders
Leader
Doubt
Advisers
Much
Adviser
Kind
Experts
People
Certainty

More quotes by Michael Lewis

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If you had to point to one thing that made it less likely that the Red Sox would win the World Series, I would say it was those people that go to Fenway Park to watch the games. And then the media around it.
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It's such a pain in the ass to write a book, I can't imagine writing one if I'm not interested in the subject.
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There's a certain status to suffering in Ireland, that the person who - if you're sitting around a table, the person with the greatest status is the person who had the most horrible thing happen to them most recently.
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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.
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They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did it willy-nilly, and they themselves a story, that Icelandic history and culture and DNA leaves us very well-suited to being investment bankers.
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Book tours are almost designed to beat out of an author any affection he has for his book.
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A thought crossed his mind: How do you make poor people feel wealthy when wages are stagnant? You give them cheap loans.
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The big Wall Street firms, seemingly so shrewd and self-interested, had somehow become the dumb money. The people who ran them did not understand their own businesses, and their regulators obviously knew even less.
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Even as late as the summer of 2006, as home prices began to fall, it took a certain kind of person to see the ugly facts and react to them-to discern, in the profile of the beautiful young lady, the face of an old witch.
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Yet another hedge fund manager explained Icelandic banking to me this way: you have a dog, and I have a cat. We agree that each is worth a billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets.
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When an American declares bankruptcy, when he hits bottom, he can reinvent himself. There's a story he can tell. We tolerate reinvention. We encourage reinvention. That's what this country has that Europe does not. It's not just a crisis it's an opportunity.
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You can anchor the mind into answering a question a certain way by giving them a totally unrelated piece of information dropped before.
Michael Lewis
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One absolutely cannot tell, by watching, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter. The difference is one hit every two weeks.
Michael Lewis
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People don't like uncertainty, and their minds are tools for making sense of the world, even when the world is senseless.
Michael Lewis
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When something happens people didn't predict, they find ways to explain it as if it were predictable.
Michael Lewis
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The Germans made just about every bad investment you could have made in the last 10 years. They invested in Icelandic banks. They invested in Greek government bonds. They were heavy into Irish banks, big into Irish banks, and they bought U.S. subprime mortgage bonds.
Michael Lewis
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I was gonna put him on the bus...I got tired of him talking, it was time for him to go home.
Michael Lewis
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There's no point in arguing with partisan supporters. Their views are their identity. Nothing you can tell the most phlegmatic follower.
Michael Lewis
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Girls tend to attribute their failures to factors such as lack of ability, while boys tend to attribute failure to specific factors, including teachers' attitudes. Moreover, girls avoid situations in which failure is likely, whereas boys approach such situations as a challenge, indicating that failure differentially affects self-esteem.
Michael Lewis
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In Japan, mothers insist on achievement and accomplishment as a sign of love and respect. Thus to fail places children in a highly shamed situation.
Michael Lewis