Two quotes
bank runs can be obviated by deposit insurance because depositors know that if all else fails, the sovereign will pay off the deposits by, if necessary, borrowing money using bonds which, if necessary, will be bought by the central bank using, if necessary, newly printed money. Because of these perceptions, the measures referred to above are almost never "necessary" because there aren't bank runs
Philip Mause, The Eurozone Mess Deconstructed: Germany's Legitimate Concern


They’d saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel. But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever—provided, naturally, that you don’t go and look.

This is known as Finance.
Terry Pratchett, "Going Postal'