Christina Romer

A successful argument for a government manufacturing policy has to go beyond the feeling that it's better to produce 'real things' than services. American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers.

To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.

I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.