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.

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.

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

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

For most people the environment controls them rather than being in full control of experiences.

I'm so depressed. Christmas is the worst of all. Holidays are terrible, worse than Sundays. I get melancholia.

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.

A thousand trills and quivering sounds In airy circles o'er us fly, Till, wafted by a gentle breeze, They faint and languish by degrees, And at a distance die.

‎"Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his name is."

An Emperor confides in national soldiers, not in mercenaries.

Life is rather like acting lessons while you are on stage giving a public performance!

You have to get beyond your own precious inner experiences.

He wished he hadn't pulled me from the path of Tyler's van - there was no other conclusion I could come to.

As an actor, you're listening to the other person and always trying to be present and take everything they're giving you, but when they're not there you have to produce that yourself.