I wasn't the brightest kid, not by a long shot. I was interested in football, in girls, in getting my work done with the least amount of effort.

There was a danger that skeptics and opponents would misread those likelihood ratio tests as rejections of an entire class of models, which of course they were not.

The first and most optimistic response was complete rational expectations econometrics. A rational expectations equilibrium is a likelihood function. Maximize it.

What I really don't like is oversimplification.

When I was a graduate student, estimating and interpreting distributed lags topped the agenda of macroeconomists and other applied economists.

I think you've got to watch out for anybody in high school who says he wants to become an economist.

I'm happy to say I am a Harrison-Kreps-Keynesian.

Keynes was a very good economist. He was brilliant. He had wonderful insights. His work has inspired me many times.

I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.

When you think in silence you cannot speak your mind.

Friends are like bras, attached near your heart for support. Foes are like panties, deported, every now and then, when they get dirty.

Trying to win a power struggle is like trying to win a nuclear war. You may achieve your goal, but not without catastrophic casualties on both sides.

Confound the subtlety of lawyers with the subtlety of the law.

Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy!

You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.”

To act in a way both sexist and racist, to maintain one's class privilege, it is only necessary to act in the customary, ordinary, usual, even polite manner.

By the ancients, courage was regarded as practically the main part of virtue; by us, though I hope we are not less brave, purity is so regarded now.

I ache for the touch of your lips dear, but much more for the touch of your whips dear.