Quotes by Ron Suskind

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

In his book The Soul of Black Folks, W.E.B. DuBois writes about always feeling his twoness-- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; to warring ideals in one dark body.

One world leader warned another the error of relying on the capability you have rather than developing the capability you need.

It was easier to be the headstrong monk, a boy on a long-shot mission, before he actually won anything. With the prize in hand, he realized his single-minded drive came across as aloof cockiness; his painful martyrdom certainly looked like self-nomination for sainthood. Hes not sure he can keep up this exhausting, aw-shucks façade for much longer.

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

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

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.

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 youre asked to explain new ideas or explain what you observed two people who share none of your experiences.

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

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.

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

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.

Trust is something you have to practice. Someday youre 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 peoples trust.

Push the needle into some middle range of guarded optimism.

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

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

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.

Im [Paul ONeill] an old guy, and Im rich. And theres nothing they can do to hurt me.

These were lobbyists—many of them compensated quite handsomely not to react as human beings.

Security is by far the citys predominant business.