Elite Networking Quotes

No, I'm not in the Illuminati.

I've been awed by the incredible opportunities that automatically float to the Harvard undergrads I once taught - from building homes for the poor in Nicaragua to landing prime White House internships.

Nepotism has always existed in Bollywood.

Criminal justice, as it pertains to the Goldmans and Morgan Stanleys of the world, is not adversarial combat, with cops and crooks duking it out in interrogation rooms and courthouses. Instead, it's a cocktail party between friends and colleagues who from month to month and year to year are constantly switching sides and trading hats.

The permanent power brokers of this city are the columnists.

Always be nice to bankers. Always be nice to pension fund managers. Always be nice to the media. In that order.

No one ever resigns from the Council on Foreign Relations. They die.

There will always be ladies who lunch. Always. And apparently they live a long time.

Dublin was hardly worried by the war; her old preoccupations were still preoccupations. The intelligentsia continued their parties; their mutual malice was as effervescent as ever.

George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.

I've always been fascinated with aristocracy. I'm really interested in the Ivy Leagues, the final clubs, all the really old-money families, the concept of old money.

If you go to Wall Street, there is someone from Harvard, Stanford, etc, who relate to each other by the batch they studied in, the dorm they lived in, and so on.

Government functions best through many close relationships at the top.

If you see a player out in public having dinner, chances are he's with his boring money manager or some boring rich guy he hopes to design a golf course for.

Davos is an extravagant bun-fight of the vanities, where the 'haves' gather to strike deals with the 'have-mores.'

Students raised on Park Avenue are born into family situations in which overachieving merely maintains the status quo, and therefore the market is primed for anyone offering services that provide an edge on local peers.

If the Ivy League was the breeding ground for the elites of the American Century, Stanford is the farm system for Silicon Valley.

I will interview bigwigs if I get the chance, but you are seldom surprised by people in power - you've got to get awfully damn close to get anything new.

The leaders of Europe always seem to emerge from the same elite, the same general frame of mind, the same schools, and the same institutions that rear generation after generation of politicians to this day. They take turns implementing the same policies.

I think one of the dirty little secrets that I try to reveal here is that Washington is not hopelessly divided. It's very interconnected. We're talking about people sort of feeding from the same insider trough, where if you are known as an insider, you are going to get paid and do very, very, very well.

That said, I should also add that I learned a great deal from being allowed in these privileged circles and am grateful for the opportunity to have worked closely with some of the most powerful and successful people in the business including Steven Spielberg and Ted Turner.