It is almost as important to know what is not serious as to know what is.

I write with two things in mind. I want to be right with my fellow economists. After all, I've made my life as a professional economist, so I'm careful that my economics is as it should be. But I have long felt that there's no economic proposition that can't be stated in clear, accessible language. So I try to be right with my fellow economists, but I try to have an audience of any interested, intelligent person.

Ralph [ Nader] is an old friend of mine, and he does a useful job in displaying a position.

The attraction of power we take for granted in politics.. But in economics...the thrust...is for pecuniary return, for money. And I have always felt that denies in the economic world a very large part of the motivation.

Wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.

Things that come from the private sector are in abundant supply; things that depend on the public sector are widely a problem. We're a world, as I said in The Affluent Society, of filthy streets and clean houses, poor schools and expensive television.

The experience of being disastrously wrong is salutary, no economist should be denied it, and not many are.