Total borrowing has imploded. Private borrowing has collapsed. And, in effect, the Treasury Department is the last borrower left standing.

Well, a deficit reflects an imbalance between spending and revenue, and so narrowing it requires acting on one, the other or both.

Every day is like that, eight successive meetings on eight different topics, every one really important and interesting.

Something that's unsustainable, like a dysfunctional relationship, can go on longer than you expect, and then end faster and messier than you think.

Well, I think what we need to remember is that budget deficits can impede economic activity.

It is a foregone opportunity that we could have a trillion dollars more of income for the United States if we were producing at capacity rather than falling so far short of it.

Social Security faces a long-term actuarial deficit, yes.

My mom is a very warm, typical sort of Jewish-mother type. And my dad has a somewhat, um, different personality.

For example, I was privileged to be working at the White House under the Clinton administration and had not finished my Ph.D., and I thought I was the cat's meow.

There've been times where I wondered whether it was worth continuing in my own education.

Learn to be true to yourself, and everything good will follow.

It was like the Justice League of Super Heroes but instead it was the Justice League of Hot Guys.

The moments when I first made something, like when I first wrote a song please me so intensely. Everything else after that is just the act of communication.

I've been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.

Being a classical musician, you're doing many things anyway. One day you're doing Bach concerto and the next you're doing some avant-garde thing. It's just another hat that I'm allowed to wear.

Unless you have a huge ego, I think it requires a tremendous amount of bravery to keep putting yourself out there, knowing that you will get rejected most of the time.

I don't cook very well at all. I'm the girl that can't make scrambled eggs.

The secret of life does not lie in its chemical basis . . . Life succeeds precisely because it evades chemical imperatives.

The business is so upside down now. It's not just about the bling-bling.

All the privileged can travel, see different worlds, not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.