Once you understand that Goliath is much weaker than you think he is, and David has superior technology, then you say: why do we tell the story the way we do? It becomes, actually, a far more meaningful and important story in its retelling than in the kind of unsophisticated way we've done it for, I think, too long.
That term, 'David and Goliath,' has entered our language as a metaphor for improbable victories by some weak party over someone far stronger.
If you go to an elite school where the other students in your class are all really brilliant, you run the risk of mistakenly believing yourself to not be a good student.
If you're last in your class at Harvard, it doesn't feel like you're a good student, even though you really are. It's not smart for everyone to want to go to a great school.
I don't think I will ever write about politics or foreign policy. I feel like there is so much good writing in those areas that I have little to add. I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like.
A handicap is like trying to race and you have a ten pound weight stuck to your waist. That is a handicap.
I've had the most untraumatic life a human being can have. But I've always been drawn to those who have had far more complicated histories.
The great accomplishment of Jobs's life is how effectively he put his idiosyncrasies - his petulance, his narcissism, and his rudeness - in the service of perfection.
So, it's a very, you know - maybe we're wrong in - you know, we go around thinking the innovator is the person who's first to kind of conceive of something. And maybe the innovation process continues down the line to the second and the third and the fourth entrant into a field.
Countless religious innovators over the years have played the game of establishing an identity for themselves by accentuating their otherness.
You don't train someone for all of those years of medical school and residency, particularly people who want to help others optimize their physical and psychological health, and then have them run a claims-processing operation for insurance companies.
It is useful to compare the Branch Davidians with the Mormons of the mid-nineteenth century. The Mormons were vilified in those years in large part because Joseph Smith believed in polygamy.
For some small number of people, a parental loss appears to be, ultimately, a desirable difficulty - again, not a large number.
The two contemporary writers whom I consider as role models are Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis.
We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious.
The best example of how impossible it will be for Major League Baseball to crack down on steroids is the fact that baseball and the media are still talking about the problem as 'steroids.'
From medieval tapestries, we know that slingers were capable of hitting birds in flight. They were incredibly accurate.
When you write about sports, you're allowed to engage in mischief. Nothing is at stake.
All three of the great waves of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century European immigrants to America innovated.
I grew up in southwestern Ontario in the heart of a Mennonite community. All my family are part of the Mennonite church.
