Greek Debt Crisis Quotes

Greece has to stay in the euro.

The vast majority of Greeks accept the need for reform and want to keep our country inside the euro zone.

I hope Greece is going to remain in the Euro zone.

If you look at the Greek economic record, it's been very similar to the U.S. experience in the first four years of the Great Depression. And after having a Depression-sized event, they've cut the unit-labor cost in Greece - they've closed something like half the gap with Germany.

We have no exposure in Europe and not made any finances to the companies there. So the question of Greek debt crisis impacting the bank does not arise.

Greece is a medium-sized country in Europe. Our debt accounts for only 2.5 percent of the total of all members of the euro zone.

I imagine the Wall Street protesters would embrace Greece's unusually generous benefits and massive welfare state, which were put in place by Socialist Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou in the 1980s.

I think there will be no government bankruptcy in Greece.

Greece's unprecedented fiscal effort, which was more than planned, has triggered much larger contractions of economic activity and the tax base than the original program had assumed.

The Greek people do not want to exit the euro. And I believe the Greek people already have shown that they have made major sacrifices to stay in the euro zone.

Dealing with Greece's problems will be more difficult if Greece is not a member of the eurozone.

Many have wondered if Greece's economy would get so bad that it would eventually break away from the Eurozone - a move that could encourage other countries to follow and therefore splinter the currency union.

Well, as I said, you know the issue of Greek debt, they've grasped the principle of debt reduction. I think most people would argue that probably more needs to be done on that front, and they've just begun to take the first steps to accepting that there's going to have to be much closer economic integration in Europe.

I think it is incumbent on the rest of us - and I would suggest that includes other European leaders - to pause in what has become a very popular game of telling the Greeks how to run their lives.

If we were going to default, we would have decided that many months ago. It would be wrong for the Greek economy, it would be wrong for the European economy, it would make things worse in the end. That's why we're taking the pain and making these structural reforms, and we're on target.