“While the home must always be the center of one’s life, it should not be the boundary of one’s ambitions.”

A week is a long time in politics.

Socialists are happy until they run out of other people’s money.

It pays to know the enemy – not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.

It’s a funny old world.

I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.

Being Prime Minister is a lonely job. In a sense, it ought to be: you cannot lead from the crowd.

Freedom will destroy itself if it is not exercised within some sort of moral framework, somebody of shared beliefs, some spiritual heritage transmitted through the Church, the family, and the school.

I wasn’t lucky, I deserved it.

Of course, it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.

If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it.

The facts of life are conservative.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

If you just set out to be liked, you will be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and would achieve nothing.

If you set out to be liked, you will accomplish nothing.

I still live as normal a life as anybody else. I have two homes to run. I have my staff to take care of. I work, pay bills and attend society meetings like everybody else.

I eat only simple Indian home food – sabzi, roti, dal, chawal, ghee. There are so many benefits of having ghee. My grandmother is 84 and she is still fit and looks beautiful.

Dearest TV media and vans outside my home, please do not stress and work so hard.

I’d love to open a tennis school for children in my hometown of Sochi.

The less people know about you, the more you understand how beautiful life is. It’s good when you exist only on screen. I don’t want them to take me home. I love to have my privacy.

I like to feel the butterflies in the stomach, I like to go home and have a restless night and wonder how I’m going to be able to accomplish this feat, get jittery. That hunger and those butterflies in the stomach are very essential for all creative people.

I have lived in Mumbai for more than 20 years, have my domicile here, my home and family here.

I didn’t think I would have an Olympic medal at 21, but I knew I would give my best and play my game. I just viewed it as my first Olympics and that I would take it one match at a time, but to bring a silver home made me very, very happy.