“If you want to understand geology, study earthquakes. If you want to understand the economy, study the Depression.”

I served seven years as the chair of the Princeton economics department where I had responsibility for major policy decisions, such as whether to serve bagels or doughnuts at the department coffee hour.

[Virtual Currencies] may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations Promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system.

Monetary policy cannot do much about long-run growth, all we can try to do is to try to smooth out periods where the economy is depressed because of lack of demand

Importantly, in the 1930s, in the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve, despite its mandate, was quite passive and, as a result, financial crisis became very severe, lasted essentially from 1929 to 1933.

The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.

Speaking as somebody who has been happily married for 35 years, I can’t imagine any choice more consequential for a lifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.

Weaker currencies abroad mean a strong dollar, and a stronger dollar, together with a weak global environment, is a drag on the U.S. econom.

If your uniform isn’t dirty, you haven’t been in the game.

I assure this committee that, if I am confirmed, I will be strictly independent of all political influences… essential to that institution’s ability to function effectively and achieve its mandated objectives.

Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks they know where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination.

I am confident that we will meet whatever challenges the future may bring.

The crisis in Europe has affected the US economy by acting as a drag on our exports, weighing on business and consumer confidence and pressuring US financial markets and institutions.

The central bank needs to be able to make policy without short term political concerns.

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.

The American people are among the most productive in the world. We have the best technologies. We have – great universities. We have entrepreneurs.

The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.

This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.

People in Japan have experienced many tsunamis and various earthquakes throughout the ages.

Soon the earth will tilt on its axis and begin to dance to the reggae beat to the accompaniment of earthquake.

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings; there’s too much corruption in the world.

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision.

It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest.

Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.