Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

by Michael Lewis

It’s the sort of place bankers stay because they think it’s where the artists stay.

Another example: the Reykjavík phone book lists everyone by his first name, as there are only about nine surnames in Iceland, and they are derived by prefixing the father’s name to “son” or “dóttir.”

Unless you know what to expect on Mount Athos—it has been regarded by the Eastern Orthodox Church for more than a millennium as the holiest place on earth, and it enjoyed for much of that time a symbiotic relationship with Byzantine emperors—these places come as a shock.

Isocrates: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

Their real estate boom had the flavor of a family lie: it was sustainable so long as it went unquestioned and it went unquestioned so long as it appeared sustainable.

A banking system is an act of faith: it survives only for as long as people believe it will.

“It’s kind of like you come home and your wife asks you about your day. I’ve done it once and I don’t want to do it again.”