Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then.

One can unite the French only under the threat of danger. One cannot simply bring together a nation that produces 265 kinds of cheese.

Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.

There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence.

It's impossible in normal times to rally a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese.

Difficulty attracts the man of character because it is in embracing it that he realizes himself