As for the job of prime minister, I like it, yes. But no more than I've liked other work that I've done as an adult.

We couldn't keep ten million refugees on our soil; we couldn't tolerate such an unstable situation for who knows how long. That influx of refugees wouldn't have stopped - on the contrary. It would have gone on and on and on, until there would have been an explosion. We were no longer able to control the arrival of those people, in our own interest we had to stop it! That's what I said to Mr.[Richard] Nixon, to all the other leaders I visited in an attempt to avert the war.

I grew up like a boy, also because most of the children who came to our house were boys.

For me the only point that has remained unchanged through the years is that in India there is still so much poverty.

The old need the company of the young so that they renew their contact with life.

I discovered [Joan of Arc] toward the age of ten or twelve, when I went to France. I don't remember where I read about her, but I recall that she immediately took on a definite importance for me. I wanted to sacrifice my life for my country. It seems like foolishness and yet...what happens when we're children is engraved forever on our lives.

People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.