“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.”

In fact, the world needs more nerds.

Although low inflation is generally good, inflation that is too low can pose risks to the economy – especially when the economy is struggling.

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.

Over the years my mother’s steadfast faith in God has inspired me, particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare.

I loved my 17 years with R.E.M., but I’m ready to reflect, assess and move on to a different phase of my life.

I havent been doin much comic book writing for the last several years though, as Ive been writing television projects and a novel.

Obama made his no-new-taxes pledge over and over again four years ago as he campaigned.

The generation I grew up in was the beginning of “stand up for yourself,” whether being a singer-songwriter or a feminist. In my college years, the feminist movement was really coming to fore, so we wouldn’t have put up with guys treating us less than equal.

The Kyoto treaty has an estimated cost of between US$150 and $350 billion a year, starting in 2010.

We wanted to do a sequel with Jim and Jeff. They said that the word was that Jim didn’t want to do any sequels. We approached him and he said he would do it, but not until next year. New Line said it was too long to wait.

There is a greater fatigue concerning the African problem today than five or 10 years ago. The situation now in Africa is worse today than it was 10 years ago.