I always wanted to have children - if it had been up to me, I would have had eleven. It was my husband who wanted only two.

I assure you we'll go on making our decisions without worrying whether it pleases or displeases the Soviet Union, China, America, France, or anyone else.

Everything I've done, I've done because I wanted to do it. In doing it, I've plunged in headlong, always believing in it.

Nothing can convince me that people are at one with their work unless they're joyous about it.

I went back into politics only when it was clear that things weren't going as they should have in my party. I was always arguing, I argued with everyone - with my father, with the leaders I had known since I was a child...and one day, it was in 1955, one of them exclaimed, 'You do nothing but criticize! If you think you can correct things, correct them. Go ahead, why don't you try?' Well, I could never resist a challenge, so I tried.

The longer one doesn't write, the more difficult it is to communicate.

I have certain objectives. They're the same objectives my father had to give people a higher standard of living, to do away with the cancer of poverty, to eliminate the consequences of economic backwardness.