First of all I would make about 80% of the people law-abiding citizens again. The policy which is carried out now makes every entrepreneur and businessman a thief against his own will.

You must go deeper into Russia - 150 kilometres from Moscow or more, and look there. The kids are fed with cattle feed - people don't get paid for half a year.

Think before you speak, and don't say everything you think.

I have equal contempt for both left and right radicals.

Most Russians don't care whether they are ruled by fascists or communists or even Martians as long as they can buy six kinds of sausage in the store and lots of cheap vodka.

There is no reason why I should call myself a democrat.

I am a Soviet man, and Yeltsin is a Soviet man - maybe our grandchildren will be different.

I mean that at least 80% of the Russian people feel destitute. It's the people who had their past and future taken from them - they don't get paid - many of them face a wall. They have nowhere to go.

He who shoots first laughs last.

Russia is like a dinosaur. A lot of time is needed for change to reach the tail from the head.

I may not be happy with you right now, but I still love you.

Everyone’s perception is different

The P's of life:Passion, Persistence, Perseverance.

The last birthday that's any good is 23.

Mozart shows a creative power of such magnitude that one can virtually say that he tossed out of himself one great masterpiece after another.

You feel sadness for time passing. New York is a city that keeps reinventing itself, and I love it so much.

The innovator is not an opponent of the old; he is a proponent of the new.

I suppose every decade gets the music it deserves.

We often look with indifference on the successive parts of something that, if the whole were seen together, would shake us with emotion.

Most ideas never happen. It's an uphill battle against the status quo and our own tendencies.