I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.

Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.

You'll live. Only the best get killed.

The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.

Only peril can bring the French together. One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.