People From New York City

"I predict it will come to be seen as a turning point in the history of psychology."

"Is it dangerous to claim that parents have no power at all (other than genetic) to shape their child's personality, intelligence, or the way he or she behaves outside the family home? ... A confession: When I first made this proposal ten years ago, I didn't fully believe it myself. I took an extreme position, the null hypothesis of zero parental influence, for the sake of scientific clarity. ... The establishment's failure to shoot me down has been nothing short of astonishing."

"The use of "nurture" as a synonym for "environment" is based on the assumption that what influences children's development, apart from their genes, is the way their parents bring them up. I call this the nurture assumption. Only after rearing two children of my own and coauthoring three editions of a college textbook on child development did I begin to question this assumption. Only recently did I come to the conclusion that it is wrong."

"There is no question that the adult caregivers play an important role in the baby's life. It is from these older people that babies learn their first language, have their first experiences in forming and maintaining relationships, and get their first lessons in following rules. But the socialization researchers go on to draw other conclusions: that what children learn in the early years about relationships and rules sets the pattern for later relationships and later rule-following, and hence determines the entire course of their lives. I used to think so too. I still believe that children need to learn about relationships and rules in their early years; it is also important that they acquire a language. But I no longer believe that this early learning, which in our society generally takes place within the home, sets the pattern for what is to follow. Although the learning itself serves a purpose, the content of what children learn may be irrelevant to the world outside their home. They may cast it off when they step outside as easily as the dorky sweater their mother made them wear."

"Birth order effects are like those things that you think you see out of the corner of your eye but that disappear when you look at them closely. They do keep turning up but only because people keep looking for them and keep analyzing and reanalyzing their data until they find them."

"Poor old Mum and Dad: publicly accused by their son, the poet, and never given a chance to reply to his charges. They shall have one now, if I may take the liberty of speaking for them. How sharper than a serpent's tooth To hear your child make such a fuss. It isn't fair—it's not the truth— He's fucked up, yes, but not by us."

"There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently."

"For the past 11 years, I’ve taught hundreds of students, primarily at Harvard Law School. I teach that the Constitution’s separation of powers protects individual liberty, and I remain grateful to the dean who hired me, Justice Elena Kagan."

"...candidates for a Supreme Court seat that had opened up after Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement in early April. I settled on the brilliant young solicitor general and former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan"

"It is absolutely true that I have served in two Democratic administrations. You can tell something from me and my political views from that."

"I think people are great in many different ways. So, I think some justices are great because they have extraordinary wisdom, they have an understanding of how to apply the law in their times … in a way that's completely consistent with … the text of the law and the purposes of the law, and in a way that's completely right for the times in which they live in."

"My politics would be, must be, have to be, completely separate from my judgment."

"It's fine if the law bans books because government won't really enforce it."

"Subsequent hearings have presented to the public a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis. Such hearings serve little educative function, except perhaps to reinforce lessons of cynicism that citizens often glean from government. Neither can such hearings contribute toward an evaluation of the Court and a determination whether the nominee would make it a better or worse institution. A process so empty may seem ever so tidy — muted, polite, and restrained — but all that good order comes at great cost."

"I love Justice Marshall. He did an enormous amount for me. But if you confirm me to this position, you will get Justice Kagan. You won't get Justice Marshall, and that's an important thing."

"We must learn to give ourselves permission to blunder, to fail, and to make fools of ourselves every day for the rest of our lives. We do so in any case."

"We make a mistake if we ask ourselves, "Am I good enough?" or "Is it worthwhile to be me?" … Whoever heard of a baby who was inadequate or a child who did not know just exactly how to be a child? How could it not be all right for me to be me? How could it not be just right for you to be you?"

"It has been a long time since I believed in Reality. I prefer the loveliness and the terror of my subjective experiences to those coldly scientific explanations which in the long run turn out to be no more real, and far less fun, than my own fantasies and musings."

"Maintaining the illusion that I am in control is futile, lonely, and in the long run more always costly than the effort is worth."

"One can choose life, or choose death. Having chosen life, I must live it as it is."

"I would have beaten Bloomberg like a rented mule."

"WEINER: Y'know, You gotta love these Republicans. I mean, you guys have . The Republican Party is the wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. They say this isn’t going to do enough, but when we propose an alternative to provide competition, they’re against it. They say we want to strengthen state insurance commissioners and they'll do the job. But when we did that in our national health care bill, they said we're against it. They said we want to have competition but when we proposed requiring competition they're against it. They’re a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. That’s the fact!"

"Dan LUNGREN: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken down."

"WEINER: You really don't want to go there, Mr. Lungren. [...]"

"I think he’s a pervert. It’s dangerous to allow him on the convention floor."

"Lately, some of Mr. Weiner’s paid advisors have been advising him to drop the stand-up shtick and start sounding more like someone with concrete running through his veins."

"It is a shame. A shame! If you believe this is a bad idea to provide health care — then vote no! But don't give me the cowardly view that "Oh, if it was a different procedure.""

"The gentleman will sit! The gentleman is correct in sitting!"

"Here's a viewer's guide to BP media briefings. Whenever you hear someone with a British accent talking about this on behalf of British Petroleum they are not telling you the truth. That's the bottom-line."

"There are basically three formations of the argument by the Republicans: First, they start by making stuff up. You kind of have to wonder if any of them actually read the bill: 137 new agencies — not true; new IRS agents - not true; 'death panels' - not true; Members aren't covered — not true; no tort reform in it — not true. You know, I want to just advise people watching at home playing that now popular drinking game of you take a shot whenever the Republicans say something that's not true, please assign a designated driver. This is going to be a long afternoon."

"I accept full responsibility for my conduct; I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse."

"LUNGREN: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken down once more."

"WEINER: Look, the point is very simple, there are inequities in the present way we distribute insurance. There are winners and there are losers. The winners are the insurance industry. [...] There is not bipartisanship on this particular issue. The people who sit on this side, at the risk of offending anyone, generally support the idea of standing up for the American people in their battle against big insurance. And the people generally speaking who sit on this side of the chamber and specifically speaking as well in a lot of cases, simply won’t permit that to happen and haven’t for a generation. Well, that is going to end now. [...] Enough of the phonyness. We are gonna solve this problem because for years our Republican friends have been unable to and unwilling to. Deal with it!" (applause)"

"You've gotta stop making stuff up."

"(Weiner asks unanimous consent to withdrawing his initial remarks and substitute new ones)."

"WEINER: Make no mistake about it. Every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. That is why —"

"I despise Wikipedia. I loathe Wikipedia. I'm appalled by Wikipedia. I use it throughout the day."

"Keynes disdained inside information — in fact, he once declared that Wall Street traders could make huge fortunes if only they would disregard their "inside" information — and his own oracles were nothing but his minute scrutiny of balance sheets, his encyclopedic knowledge of finance, his intuition into personalities, and a certain flair for trading."

"Economic freedom is a highly desirable state — but in bust and boom we must be prepared to face the its consequences."

"It was the unemployment that was the hardest to bear. The jobless millions were like an embolism in the nation's vital circulation; and while their indisputable existence argued more forcibly than any text that something was wrong with the system, the economists wrung their hands and racked their brains and called upon the spirit of Adam Smith, but could offer neither diagnosis or remedy."

"The rise of the welfare state, on the one hand, and of the military bureaucracy, on the other, are instances of the manner in which technology is enforcing a socialization of life."

"The Wealth of Nations may not be an original book, but it is unquestionably a masterpiece."

"Nobody wanted this commercialization of life."

"It may strike us as odd that the idea of gain is a relatively modern one; we are schooled to believe that man is essentially an acquisitive creature and that left to himself he will behave as any self-respecting businessman would. The profit motive, we are constantly being told, is as old as man himself. Nothing could be further from the truth."

"He who enlists a man's mind wields a power even greater than the sword or the scepter."

"We may make progress only by freeing ourselves from the rut of the past, but without this rut an orderly society would hardly be possible in the first place."

"Very few of the heroes of the Golden Age of American finance had much interest in the solid realities of what underlay their structure of stocks and bonds and credits."

"But like Marx, Veblen badly underestimated the capacity of a democratic system to correct its own excesses."

"If an economy in the doldrums could drift indefinitely, the price of government inaction might be graver by far than the consequences of bold unorthodoxy."

"In an age which no longer waits patiently through this life for the rewards of the next, it is a crushing spiritual blow to lose one's sense of participation in mankind's journey, and to see only a huge milling-around, a collective living-out of lives with no larger purpose than the days which each accumulates. When we estrange ourselves from history we do not enlarge, we diminish ourselves, even as individuals. We subtract from our lives one meaning which they do in fact possess, whether we recognize it or not. We cannot help living in history. We can only fail to be aware of it. If we are to meet, endure, and transcend the trials and defeats of the future — for trials and defeats there are certain to be — it can only be from a point of view which, seeing the future as part of the sweep of history, enables us to establish our place in that immense procession in which is incorporated whatever hope humankind may have."