“House prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”

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

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.

The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.

I come from Main Street, from a small town that’s really depressed.

Every effort needs to be made to try and offset the costs of Katrina and Rita by reductions in other government programs, especially those that are wasteful, duplicative and ineffective.

I don’t see much evidence of an equity bubble.

Education – lifelong education for everyone – from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers – is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.

It must be awfully frustrating to get a small raise at work and then have it all eaten by a higher cost of commuting.

You have to be aware. Like, I’m not going to do any downhill skiing. It looks like a whole lot of fun, but I’m not going to risk breaking a leg.

The Poet’s leaves are gathered one by one, In the slow process of the doubtful years.

The scramble to get into college is going to be so terrible in the next few years that students are going to put up with almost anything, even an education.

Touring is a young man’s game, but after 30 years of it, I want to stay home.

At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse.

I have been very fortunate in that I’m not doing all network shows or all cable shows, television has really become a year-round process in the way that it’s made.

I will fight in the United States Senate this year to fund a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008, a mission that would potentially increase Hubbles power and efficiency by a factor of 10 and allow us to look back almost to the beginning of the universe.

[United States] are sovereign country, they are an independent country, but this is their limit; they don’t have to interfere in any other country.