We lived in a totalitarian system for more than 70 years, and our views are still under its influence. Many heads of state in the former Soviet republics believe that they must have total power.

The West didn't see our real situation, and we were blinded by the compliments coming from the Europeans and Americans.

Our prison in Georgia is a very different place from this prison here in Berlin. The conditions there are inhuman.

I think that our society will not allow anyone to establish a dictatorship again in the future. [Mikhail] Saakashvili will fail.

I made mistakes. My supporters and I failed to prevent a main like [Mikhail] Saakashvili from acquiring absolute power. I should have criticized him earlier on.

I hope to be granted asylum. Deportation [ from Germany] that would be a death sentence for me.

Georgian society can no longer be divided. I don't want to see our country's best minds leaving the country to try their luck abroad.

I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened

I love my family so much that it brings tears to my eyes.

You will never accept gratitude as a solution to your problems, until you have reached the last stage of grief--acceptance.

Computers are like Old Testament gods lots of rules and no mercy.

I had time with my mother, but I really lived with my father. One time he gave all his salary so I could travel to a training camp. He couldn't pay the rent, but he did that.

In a world that might say one vote doesn't matter..., it does matter because each person is of infinite worth and value to God... Your vote is a declaration of importance as a person and a citizen.

I have a lot to learn from designers.

This was what true fear was--that you could never know other people, not completely. That you were always just guessing blind.

I'm probably my biggest critic. I worry that if you spend any quality time reveling in good things then karma will slap you upside the head, so I try to stay as even keel as I'm able.

It is always a question of knowing and seeing, and not that of believing. The teaching of the Buddha is qualified as ehi-passika, inviting you to 'come and see', but not to come and believe.