Corey Jones

“Should be a fun week. This is what separates good bankers from the posers.” The e-mail exchange grew heated. A manager in charge of WaMu’s deposits responded defensively: “No one is panicking, so long emails that sound preachy don’t help. We are not dumb, let us prepare.” Freilinger replied, “If you fire people up over weekends, you’re fanning flames, not ‘getting ready.’ ‘Getting ready’ takes place months, not hours before a firestorm, by increasing branch awareness through clear pricing signals and encouragement of building deposit excess balances while no obvious sparks around. I never called anyone dumb—but I’ll continue to dial back unnecessarily panicked executives wherever and whenever I find them.”
― Kirsten Grind, The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual-The Biggest Bank Failure in American History

“TRAVEL IS FATAL TO PREJUDICE, BIGOTRY, AND NARROW-MINDEDNESS, AND MANY OF OUR PEOPLE NEED IT SORELY ON THESE ACCOUNTS. BROAD, WHOLESOME, CHARITABLE VIEWS OF MEN AND THINGS CANNOT BE ACQUIRED BY VEGETATING IN ONE LITTLE CORNER OF THE EARTH ALL ONE’S LIFETIME.” —Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1869”
― Michael Geringer, International Business

“Terrorist schemes are usually plotted by clever people, and then carried out by manipulated morons.”
― Ben Macintyre, The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World

“There is no art form more intrinsically and blatantly American—in its casual violence, its bombastic braggadocio, its virulent jingoism, its populist defiance of respectability, and its intermittently awe-inspiring beauty—than professional wrestling. This lucrative enterprise is not a legitimate competition, but it is indisputably an expression of creativity. Its practitioners have a time-worn saying: “This ain’t ballet.” But it’s not that far from ballet: a kinetic method of storytelling, one that requires tremendous skill (and physical pain) to perform.”
― Abraham Riesman, Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America