“The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.

If I am confirmed, I am confident that my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee and I will maintain the focus on long-term price stability as monetary policy’s greatest contribution to general economic prosperity and maximum employment.

If you are asking me if I would advocate that the Chinese go to greater flexibility in their exchange rate, I certainly would.

I don’t fully understand movements in the gold price.

Under a cold turkey strategy, at each policy meeting the Federal Open Market Committee would make its best guess about where it ultimately wants the funds rate to be and would move to that rate in a single step.

A collapse in U.S. stock prices certainly would cause a lot of white knuckles on Wall Street. But what effect would it have on the broader U.S. economy? If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.

…the Federal Reserve has the capacity to operate in domestic money markets to maintain interest rates at a level consistent with our economic goals

How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?

It’s true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.

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.

Nobody really understands gold prices and I don’t pretend to understand them either.

The Fed is totally open.

I don’t think that Chinese ownership of U.S. assets is so large as to put our country at risk economically.

I am very proud of my nerd-dom.

The financial crisis appears to be mostly behind us, and the economy seems to have stabilized and is expanding again.

In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.

I wish I were the type who could walk into a place and have everybody love me. But I’m not, and there’s no use wishing

My second novel, “Good Benito”, was not finished. I wished that I had spent another year with it.

I wish Monkeys could Skype. Maybe one day.

Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.

I wish they were like the White Rhinosix of them left in the Serengeti National Park, and all males.

Kind of wish I was dead. Maybe, I’ll blow my brains out, mama, or maybe I’ll go bowling.

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.