The doctors advised me not to have even one. My health was still not good, and they said that pregnancy might be fatal. If they hadn't said that to me, maybe I wouldn't have got married. But that diagnosis provoked me, it infuriated me. I answered, 'Why do you think I'm getting married if not to have children? I don't want to hear that I can't have children; I want you to tell me what I have to do in order to have children!'

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.

The civil servant is primarily the master of the short-term solution.

What good does it do to remain tied to an ideology if you don't achieve anything by it? I have an ideology myself - you can't work in a vacuum; you have to have faith in something.

My father was a saint. He was the closest thing to a saint that you can find in a normal man.

Not only Negroes and Jews, but also women are part of a great revolt of which one can only approve.

The life I've had, the difficulties, the hardships, the pain I've suffered since I was a child. It's a great privilege to have led a difficult life, and many people in my generation have had this privilege - I sometimes wonder if young people today aren't deprived of the dramas that shaped us.