“Indeed, if communist central planners could have organized the economy with as much detail, precision, and flexibility as a modern-day Toyota or Wal-Mart, communism would probably still exist!”

“It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school.”

“… I couldn't let go of the thought that it had, in fact, been he, restless and moody Heathcliff. Day after day, he floated through all the Wal-Marts in America, searching for me in a million lonely aisles.”

“The parallel existence and mutual interaction of "state" and "market" in the modern world create "political economy"; without both state and market there could be no political economy.”

“Without an industrial economy, the modern army, as in America, could not exist; it is an army of machines. Professional economists usually consider military institutions as parasitic upon the means of production. Now, however, such institutions have come to shape much of the economic life of the United States.”

“Be stubborn on the vision, but flexible on the details.”

“On the day that Daniel Cowman stopped existing
The world should have ended right then and there
At precisely four-fifteen when he stopped existing
The world should have ended
How could it go on?”

“The economy as an instituted process of interaction serving the satisfaction of material wants forms a vital part of every human community. Without an economy in this sense, no society could exist for any length of time.”

“It is indeed paradoxical that, while the apologists of capitalism usually consider the 'price mechanism' to be the great advantage of the capitalist system, price flexibility proves to be a characteristic feature of the socialist economy.”

“She would consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences.”