What is of consequence is I did my best.

To straddle the middle ground and win elections, we have to be in charge of the political agenda. This can only be done by not being beaten in the argument with our critics. They complain that I come down too hard on their arguments. But wrong ideas have to be challenged before they influence public opinion and make for problems. Those who try to be clever at the expense of the government should not complain if my replies are as sharp as their criticisms.

Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it.

Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.

Rest on laurels? I wish I could do that. No, you rest when you're dead

If nobody is afraid of me, I'm meaningless.

You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... my asset values will disappear, my apartments will be worth a fraction of what they were, my ministers' jobs will be in peril, their security will be at risk and their women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers.