Americans are terrified because so many of them have been laid off in recent years and months and they fear that they may be next. Even if they have not been laid off or have not known anyone laid off, they definitely know someone who has lost his home.

My parents, products of the Great Depression, were successful people, but lived in a state of constant fear that my sister and I, and they, would sink into the kind of economic insecurity that their generation knew so well.

My pals, such as they are, in Hollywood, ask me why I love to travel to D.C. so much, why it's a vacation destination for me. I say, 'Because I sometimes have perfect days there.'

The banks are not lending, at least from what I see. They were so wild and reckless back in the good times that they got burned terribly.

I have to tell you I never in my life anticipated getting this old, this fast. It seems as if I were 25 just a few days ago.

The successful people of this world take life as it comes. They just go out and deal with the world as it is.

The people who did the collateralized mortgage obligations, sold them to pension funds, then sold them short, then bought credit default swap insurance on them, are just amazing. They are a law unto themselves.