The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility.

Therefore one should speak at the same time of national citizenship and wider European citizenship.

The European model is in danger if we obliterate the principle of personal responsibility.

The problem with a purely collective system is not only that it requires economic growth, and the right sort of demographic trends, but that it prevents people thinking about their futures in a responsible way.

This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.

Yes, the European model remains superior to that of America and Japan.

This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare, where nobody is responsible for anything.

My problem is how to find the best way of being useful.

We have to struggle against the conservatives from all sides, not only the right-wingers, but also the left-wing conservatives who don't want to change anything.

My presidential victory, if it had happened, would have been artificial in relation to the Socialist party. It may be that on my deathbed, I will come to regret my decision, but for the moment, I live at peace with it.

Any union that can't accept workers choosing their own representatives through universal franchise is finished.

The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare, no matter what happens to the world, that's not equity, it's just creating a society where you can't ask anything of people.

These days there are not enough of such intermediary groups, between the state and the individual, with the result that political leaders are often unduly guided by opinion polls.

For me, socialism has always been about liberty and solidarity, but also about responsibility.

I cannot resign myself to the decline of Europe, and of France.

If you don't have collective agreements between unions and employers, governments have to legislate more.

The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault.

I had to think whether, after 50 years of hard slog, I was still lucid and fresh enough for the job.

Fundamentally, American society is composed of individuals who don't go out of their way to do each other favours.

The countries that share this conception should be able to go further together, without excluding the others, since they can still live in a greater community of exchange and co-operation.

Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.

The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility.

The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.

I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.

Cinema explains American society. It's like a Western, with good guys and bad guys, where the weak don't have a place.

The European model is, first, a social and economic system founded on the role of the market, for no computer in the world can process information better than the market.

This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare where nobody is responsible for anything.

The difference between talking on your cell phone while driving and speaking with a passenger is huge. The person on the other end of the cell phone is chattering away, oblivious.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion.

I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks.

When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis.

It seems that whatever we do is somehow beyond reproach - murder, rape, drunk driving - as long as we go on a TV show and apologize.

The colors I choose there was to paint the first hotel, the Disneyland Hotel. Because of the cloudy sky we had in Paris, it had to be a particular kind of color who will fight those grey days. And also something you can see when you're driving up 'There it is! We're arriving!'

Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.

When you've been driving in the top category for 10 years, you're obviously not a kid any more. You know, I'm married now and I've got two kids. That let's you know you're getting older.

If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars. They would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.

This would not be a problem if I were driving a snowplow.

Living with a conscience is like driving with the brakes on.

Americans are making coffee a bigger part of their lives, expanding attitudes and behaviors that are driving new levels of consumption.

Nowhere in this country should we have laws that permit drinking and driving or drinking in vehicles that are on American highways. This is not rocket science. We know how to prevent this, and 36 states do.

I was 16 years old, driving to LA, and sleeping in my car, just trying to make it happen.

One morning, about four o'clock, I was driving my car just about as fast as I could. I thought, Why am I out this time of night? I was miserable, and it came to me: I'm falling in love with somebody I have no right to fall in love with.

Baseball is like driving, it's the one who gets home safely that counts.

I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating. I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.

Take air quality in the United States today: It's about 30 percent better than it was 25 years ago, even though there are now more people driving more cars.

I am endlessly busy, bringing up five young kids, and trying to keep up with the three older ones. I still spend most of my life driving car pools.

You've got to be closer to the edge than ever to win. That means sometimes you go over the edge, and I don't mean driving, either.

Our material eye cannot see that a stupid chauvinism is driving us from one noisy, destructive, futile agitation to another.