Mikhail Gorbachev

Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can’t resolve the problem of women’s pantyhose. There’s no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was incredible and humiliating to work in such a government.

One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life.

The world is changed by idealists.

America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard.

I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.

Americans have a severe disease – worse than AIDS. It’s called the winner’s complex.

God, grant us our desires, and grant them quickly.

Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.

There are three books my daughter felt were the most important influences in her life: the Bible, her mother’s cookbook, and her father’s checkbook.

Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man.

I feel the presence of a higher power. I believe that what you give is what you get. It’s universal law. I believe in the power of prayer and of words. I’ve learned that when you predict that negative things will happen, they do.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I’m not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I’ve never thought about that before! He said, When you’re not following me, you’re resisting me.

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

It is a naked city. Faith is not pampered, nor hope encouraged; there is no place to lay one’s exhaustion: but instead pinnacles skewer it undisguised against vacancy.

Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.

When you get there, there isn’t any there there.

Thou shalt not commit adultry is a command which makes no distinction between the following persons. They are all required to obey it: children at birth. Children in the cradle. School children. Youths and maidens. Fresh adults. Older ones. Men and women of 40. Of 50. Of 60. Of 70. Of 80. Of 100. The command does not distribute its burden equally, and cannot. It is not hard upon the three sets of children.

It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.