World: Top quotes of 2008
WE are resolved as an administration, not resort to quick methods and short-cuts in approaching fundamental problems which require methodical and sustainable solutions.—President Yar’Adua on independence anniversary
When things go well, people call me Gordon. When they’re bad, they call me Mr Brown. At the moment, they are calling me Gordon. — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
It’s hard to tell where the floor will be. — Peter Spencer, economics professor at University of York, as sterling slumps to record low against euro.
While we’re still the US sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you. — General Motors, in full-page ad in ‘Automotive News’.
Mr president-elect, I’m proud to join you in what will be a difficult and exciting adventure. — Hillary Clinton agrees to serve as Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
To ensure prosperity here at home and peace abroad, we all share the belief we have to maintain the strongest military on the planet. — Barack Obama.
Money can be a burden. That’s why I got stressed last year. I had a massive house that I couldn’t control or clean. — Carly Zucker, 24, girlfriend of Chelsea soccer player Joe Cole, on ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!’
He is like some sherry-crazed old dowager who has lost the family silver at roulette, and who now decides to double up by betting the house as well. — London Mayor Boris Johnson on UK PM Gordon Brown.
I can’t go to my old barber shop now. I’ve gotta have my barber come to some undisclosed location to cut my hair. — US President-elect on adjusting to his and his family’s new reality and the “certain lonliness to the job” of president.
Will I be able to have children? — Hitler’s first question to the doctor who saved his life after a groin injury in the WWI Battle of the Somme. A recently discovered manuscript of a conversation between the doctor and Hitler’s priest confirmed the rumor that Hitler lost a testicle in the fight.
I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture and I’m going to make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world. — Barack Obama.
I haven’t been doing enough exercise. I have let things slide— Camilla, Dutchess of Cornwall, reveals she has let herself go since getting married to Princes Charles.
It will never work with all those Huns, wops and dagos.— Britain’s Queen Mother on the EU, quoted by BBC man Edward Stourton in his book ‘It’s a PC World’.
I’ve been sleeping like a baby: sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours, wake up and cry. — John McCain, asked how he was doing by Jay Leno on ‘The Tonight Show’, in first interview after his defeat in US presidential election.
I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. — Sarah Palin, hoping God will show her the door to the White House in 2012.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. — Barack Obama, in victory speech in US presidential election in home state of Chicago, November 4, 2008.
Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place. — Nelson Mandela, former South African president, in letter to Barack Obama on being elected the 44th President of the United States.
Unbelievable! Obama’s coming - make way!” — Mwai Kibaki, Kenyan president, on Barack Obama’s election win, which led Kibaki to declare a national holiday on the Thursday in honor of the President-elect.
I don’t know if I will die of happiness.— Sarah Obama, celebrating her grandson’s victory in the US presidential election, from her home in the village of Kogelo, Kenya.
If some people don’t have a sense of humor, then it’s their problem. — Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister, after being criticized for commenting that president-elect Barack Obama would work well with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev because Obama is “young, handsome and sun-tanned”.
We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsumani. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures. Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity are in a state of shocked disbelief. — Former US Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, on global financial meltdown.
Not since the first world war has our banking system been so close to collapse. The long march to boredom and stability starts tonight. — Mervyn King, governor of Bank of England, saying people face a long journey through recession.
I ain’t got time to die. — Ann Nixon Cooper, 106, of Atlanta, Georgia, on living through the years when African-Americans and women couldn’t vote to now, a time where Barack Obama is running for president.
Your company is now bankrupt, our economy is now in a state of crisis, but you get to keep $480 million. I have a very basic question for you: Is this fair? — Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, questioning Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld over the bank’s collapse.
Nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture. — Pope Benedict XVI, criticizing modern life and greed at a meeting of bishops in Rome on Oct. 5.
The reality is we’re in an urgent situation and the consequences will get bigger each day we do not act. — US President George Bush, on efforts to resurrect the $700 billion financial rescue package.
He’ll be up there with Churchill. — Cherie Blair on how history will judge her husband and former British prime minister Tony Blair.
Don’t blow it up. — US treasury secretary Henry Paulson on bended knee, to Democratic Party House speaker Nancy Pelosi, pleading for her to back $700bn Wall Street bailout.
I have signed this agreement because my belief in Zimbabwe and its peoples runs deeper than the scars I bear from the struggle … and because my hope for the future is greater than the grief for the needless suffering of the past years. We deserve a better life; a life without fear, hunger, poverty and oppression. — Morgan Tsvangirai, the incoming prime minister of Zimbabwe.
You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig. — US presidential candidate Barack Obama in what sounded like an attack on Republican vice-president nominee Sarah Palin.
No way. No how. No McCain. Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be president.— Hillary Clinton backs Obama at convention.
In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others. — Russian president Dmitri Medvedev on recognizing independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions, saying the West set a precedent by treating Kosovo the same way.
I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes. — Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in his resignation speech.
If they knew the plane was faulty, why did they let it fly? — A relative of one of the 153 passengers killed in the Spanair crash at Madrid airport.
Eat, sleep and swim. That’s all I can do. — Olympic champion Michael Phelps explains the secret of his success, a lot of eggs in a 12,000 calories a day diet.
This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can invade its neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed. — Condoleezza Rice on military clashes between Russia and Georgia.
That wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which means I’m running for President. So thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude, and I want America to know I’m, like, totally ready to lead. — Paris Hilton lampoons a John McCain US presidential campaign video using her image.
I respected him, and he respected me. — Osama bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Hamdan, tells a military court he never suspected bin Laden was involved in terrorism until after the 9/11 attacks.
It is now unimaginable to many people that this court could acquit me. I believe that this fact seriously jeopardises the trial itself. — On trial at UN war crimes tribunal, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic says he is victim of media witchhunt.
Sugar is responsible for a lot of deaths. Arguably more than crack cocaine. — Guy Ritchie, who is married to Madonna.
Wall Street got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. And the question is how long will it sober up and not try to do those fancy financial instruments? — US president George Bush ponders America’s financial services meltdown.
Thank God my brother is alive and healthy. He has lost weight but he is normal and reasonable. He knows whether or not he is guilty. — Luka Karadzic, brother of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, arrested for war crimes.
Too often (the Church) is weighted down and burdened with the sins and failings of her children; too often she appears disfigured and discouraged. — Pope Benedict XVI.
Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises.— Pope Benedict XVI on the perils of materialism.
Many things that happened in the jungle we have to leave in the jungle.— Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, refuses to discuss certain details about her six years of captivity in jungles of Colombia.
If I see something sagging, bagging and dragging, I’m going to nip it, tuck it and suck it.— Dolly Parton reveals her anti-aging procedure.
What is so special is that you spend 27 years in prison, you come out and you do the thing that everyone thought was impossible to do, become president of the nation and change the way people feel agbhout Africa. — Oprah Winfrey to Nelson Mandela on his 90th birthday.
We have seen the outbreak of violence against fellow Africans in our own country and the tragic failure of leadership in our neighboring Zimbabwe. — Nelson Mandela speaks out against Robert Mugabe.
We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun? — Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe hints he will cling to power, whatever the outcome of the election for president.:
I think that, in retrospect, I could have used a different rhetoric. Phrases such as ‘bring them on’ or ‘dead or alive’ indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace. — US President George W Bush regrets being so hawkish over Iraq.
He didn’t like the nose.— Courtroom sketch artist Janet Hamlin on the response of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, after he saw a sketch of himself.
This may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind. — Bill Clinton, husband of US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, on the eve of what political pundits anticipate to be her withdrawal from the Democratic campaign.
The so-called international misers theory is totally unfounded. — China’s commerce minister Chen Deming, refuting Chinese netizens’ claim that multinational corporations such as Nokia and McDonald’s donated little to help Sichuan earthquake victims. According to Chinese Internet portal Sina.com, corporations have donated or pledged more than $1 billion.
Those 20 envelopes won’t shake up German democracy. — Spokesman for Deutsche Post after stamps depicting Nazi leader Rudolf Hess are accidentally issued.
I wish for the recovery of my daughter Kerstin, the love of my children, the protection of my family and for people with heart and compassion. — Elisabeth Fritzl, the Austrian woman kept as a sex slave by her father for 24 years thanks people for their support in a handwritten message on a notice board in the square of her home town.
We have lit the torch on top of the world.— Climber on Chinese mountaineering team that took Olympic flame to top Mount Everest.
I am not a monster. I could have killed them all, and no one would have known. — Josef Fritzl, 73, the Austrian man who fathered seven children with daughter he imprisoned in a cellar for 24 years.
Every US President has to have a war.— Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet president, claiming the US military buildup risks leading to a new cold war with Russia.
Some of the comments that Rev Wright has made offend me, and I understand why they offend the American people. He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the American people. — Barack Obama on his old pastor.
My own years as a teenager were marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers. Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civil bodies as well as politics and even religion, before it was recognized for the monster it was.— Pope Benedict XVI on Nazism, speaking to seminarians and young people at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York, during his first papal visit to the US.
In the US and Europe over the last year we’ve been focused on the prices of gasoline at the pump. While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs. And it’s getting more and more difficult every day. — IMF chief Robert Zoellick.
Sometimes I think that when people become famous, there’s a public perception that they are not human beings any more. — Writer Salmon Rushdie.
The evidence provided no basis whatsoever in suggesting that (Prince Philip) was involved in killing his daughter-in-law. One of the regrettable features of this case is the number of people who have told lies in the witness box or elsewhere. — Lord Justice Scott Baker, presiding at the Princess Diana Inquest.
I do not think that is any of your business. — Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Hillary Clinton, asked if her mother’s credibility was damaged during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Within me, there is a charitable disposition.— President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe denies he is a tyrant.
They can examine my pulse, my urine, my stool, everything. — The Dalai Lama invites Chinese authorities to investigate whether he was behind the rioting in Tibet.
They say fags and booze are bad for you - but I’m still here.— Britain’s oldest employee Buster Martin, aged 101, after running a half marathon.
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