December 09, 2017

From The Economist:

[Every] lost one demands to be remembered, even though "nothing is eternal."

From The Economist:

Leading economists prefer to create knowledge rather than disseminate it, and they communicate with each other in a language that can be hard to understand.

Although mathematical models add clarity and rigour (and Mr [Jean] Tirole is a heavy user in his own research), they can constrain which questions are asked, and be mistaken as the goal of research rather than the means.

From The New Yorker:

[You] can’t have a reformist project that doesn’t have an earlier idea of form within it.

From The New Yorker:

[Philip Roth's] patriotism recognizes how helplessly dependent we are on a network of associations and communal energy, of which we become fully aware only as it disappears.

Not only can you go home again, Roth insists. You can only go home again. You get America right by remembering Newark as it really was.

From Harper's:

Goldfish are able to survive for months without oxygen by converting lactic acid into ethanol.