“If I had to sum up my practical skills, I would use one word: survival. And operating a hedge fund utilized my training in survival to the fullest.”

Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.

The sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.

Find the trend whose premise is false, and bet against it.

My main concern is with the world order.

If the bubbles contain a misconception, as they always do, then it can’t be maintained forever.

I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society.

When money is free, the rational lender will keep on lending until there is no one else to lend to.

To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride.

In politics, manipulating reality can take presidence over finding reality.

Discount the obvious, bet on the unexpected.

There is very little difference between speculation and investment. The only difference is basically that investments are successful speculations because if you successfully anticipate the future you make a speculative profit.

Once a trend is established it tends to persist and to run it’s full course.

My sense of insecurity keeps me alert, always ready to correct my errors.

Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.

I’m not better than the next trader, just quicker at admitting my mistakes and moving on to the next opportunity.

Studying economics is not a good preparation for dealing with it.

I’ve had a hip replacement, I’ve beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, ‘I’m done.’

What interests us in operations of striation and smoothing are precisely the passages or combinations: how the forces at work within space continually striate it, and how in the course of its striation it develops other forces and emits new smooth spaces.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Theater acting is an operation with a scalpel, movie acting is an operation with a laser.

The only reason I’d ever get a sex change operation is to see what it’s like to be right all the time.

Catching the apple doesn’t overturn the law of gravity or the formulation of a new law. It’s merely an intervention of a person with freewill who overrides the natural causes operative in that particular circumstance. And that is, essentially, is what God does when he causes a miracle to occur.

Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be “lifelong”? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?

I don’t deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn’t deserve that, either. So I’ll keep it.