34 Quotes by David Plotz

Like my father, Donor White could hold in his head the incompatible demands of rationality and irrationality, of facts and love.

In the early 1980s, Graham worked hard to turn the Repository into a respectable business, rather than a ludicrous one: Graham’s wife didn’t like keeping the sperm at the Escondido estate. Not only had the house been picketed, but a Japanese trespasser had once made a run at the sperm, only to be nipped by a family dog.

I think I developed a culture of healthy skepticism of claims of certainty on any side of the aisle. A sort of boldness in using economics no matter where it leads you in political circles, you know, rather than worrying about being left-wing or right-wing or biased or this or that.

The process of just being in front of people, having to stand up for your ideas, and ask – and then ask people for money, which is a very hard thing to do.

I have blocks of time where I’m working intently on something.

I do think there will be winners and losers in the 21st century economy.

The Christians think I am making a mistake by not trying the New Testament and meeting Jesus. The Jews tend to think I am making a mistake by reading without support from educated people. After all, there is 2,000 years of scholarship about the book, they say, so it’s perverse of me to ignore it.