I go out with actresses because I'm not apt to marry one.

The reason prophets are so rarely honored in their own country is that their role is to transcend the limits of their contemporaries' experience and imagination. They achieve recognition only when their vision has been turned into experience - in short, when it is too late to benefit from their foresight.

The Gorbachev period is conceived as an abandonment of historic Russian positions. So this is the framework, in my view, in which Putin operates.

Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess and has opened his game with an unusual opening.

Well, he keeps saying that, and as defense secretary, of course he has to think of a lot of potential enemies. I do not think it's a wise course to articulate this or to base our policy on it. And I do not see under modern circumstances what we would be fighting about.

For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.

I do not stand on protocol. If you just call me Excellency, it will be okay.