You're not always able to choose.

I joined the city government, and we start to operate as the bureaucrats on the local level, so we were the only ones in the whole Russian team who were experienced in practical bureaucratic management in the complicated condition of 1990.

I'm communicating with the directors of the Soviet companies, and I see that it is wrong, but when I go to the official discussions, they discuss we should change the color of the walls.

During the election in 1989, there was the first Soviet election with alternative candidates to local government. I myself arranged special training for them.

Each university should have a Young Scholars' Committee. I became the chairman of this Committee, and immediately it was permitted to have this plan officially adopted.

These guys were the real owners of the country, and for them to discuss with this young guy who becomes a member of the government was absolutely unacceptable.

It was almost forbidden in the Soviet Union to study the New Economic Policy.

The red directors were one of the main political forces. Another force was the former Soviet ministers who lost everything because of the transformation of the Soviet Union to Russia.

There was the scientific and technical progress which couldn't be predicted by the state.

For the producers, there was no reason to produce. You get money, but you couldn't use this money. For consumers, you could have money, but you have no way to use it because you go to the shop and see nothing.

You're never able to please everybody, especially when you're transforming a country like Russia.

I am joining the government not from the academic position but from St. Petersburg city council.

The diversification of the people's demand could not be followed by the state apparatus.

There are no two countries with the same style of economic mechanism, with the same capitalism.

In 1995 the whole political situation was very complicated. I was the first deputy prime minister, and at the same time I had very low influence in the government.

For the whole of Western Europe, I know the business community quite good.

There was no doubt that sooner or later we will fight. But we will fight not in the way of the dissidents' protests. We understood that we needed to be as professional as possible.

Russia should support globalization. The Internet can develop in Russia in a very speedy way.

Bill Gates finds people in Russia to hire them to Microsoft. That's the Russian interest in this process.

I went to government for making these changes. I remember a number of guys among these important figures.

Private property is a very fundamental and very long-term institution.

The kind of capitalism I hate most is crony capitalism, the friends who decide. These are things which should be killed in Russia.

Killing the private property-that was the center of the Marxist economy and Marxist ideology. That was the center of the Lenin ideology.

There is a state that is able to understand the demand in the economy. That state should use prices as an instrument for implementation of this understanding.

I don't think Russia will follow the United States's way. I don't think Russia will follow the French way. I'm sure Russia will find its own way.

The Bolsheviks started not just on the killing of private property; they were trying to abolish money itself.

You need to find somebody who will speak the same language. We understand that we couldn't have any kind of discussion without permission, without a legal framework behind it.

The directors thought, They understand nothing in the real economy, in real life. They read some stupid books, and they came from the moon to the earth, and maybe in one month they will disappear.

If I just produce the transparent ideal accepted by the Western experts, a process of privatization which will be very good but never happen, that means nothing.

Money is the kind of instrument which is very speedily produced.

You're not always able to choose.

The whole melodrama of the Middle East would be improved if amnesia were as common here as it is in melodramatic plots.

I don't live in Los Angeles and I don't do a lot of superfluous press.

Brokenness is the bow from which God launches the arrow of healing.

I was reared in an atmosphere where a great deal of attention was paid to women's hairdressing.

Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.

I don't think I know a Scientologist except when I see one or two of their actors on the Hollywood screen.

My nickname used to be Moses - still is Moses - for a long time, and people just call me Mo for short.

If you look at the themes that he struck from the minute he started running for president through today, there is a very high level of consistency, and there is a sense that he is who he is. Obama's governing is completely consistent with the way he campaigned and the themes on which he campaigned, the issues he highlighted, the vision he shared.

Positive secularism is not tolerance of all religions, but it is the total denial of religious beliefs: it is the emergence of homogeneous human outlook which is based upon verifiable facts of life.

The excitement of automobile racing did not compare with what I knew must come with aeroplane fighting in France.

The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering the weaknesses of those greater than itself.

I love my mother Ali so much. I'm a momma's boy. I just have a very cool mom. It's not as though I had any say in the matter. I'm just really fortunate. She's the most kind, loving, giving woman.

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

Most anyplace one lives is essentially dangerous. There are floods in the Midwest, and tornadoes. There are hurricanes along the Gulf. In New York, you get mugged.

I'm a baseball player who likes to enjoy himself and leave everything to God. He knows what'll happen.

Come September, the middle of September when the first frost comes, that's hunting season. Fishing poles are hung up and the hunting season starts. You've got to be careful, if you're a hunter, that it doesn't become an obsession.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

Just think of what Woodrow Wilson stood for: he stood for world government. He wanted an early United Nations, League of Nations. But it was the conservatives, Republicans, that stood up against him.