"Ladies, I have a mission for you on election day: cook! Sweet and exquisite things, please. Bring them to the polling station to be examined. The boldest can try making a tart, the most skilful, profiteroles"

"It's the fate of the lion in winter: all his billions, all his television channels cannot rescue him from the mockery that rains down on the aged lecher, his powers visibly waning."

"They keep calling me a dwarf, but I'm taller than Sarkozy and Putin."

"Barack Obama being young, handsome and sun-tanned is going to get along with you swimmingly."

"We could not field a big enough force to avoid this risk [of rape]. We would need so many soldiers because our women are so beautiful."

"In absolute terms, I am the most legally persecuted man of all times, in the whole history of mankind, worldwide."

"The real Italian anomaly is not Silvio Berlusconi but communist prosecutors and communist judges in Milan who have attacked him again and again since he entered politics."

"I wish luck to you and your nation that loves you as the election results we can see testify."

"Being a piduist is not a title of demerit."

"P2 gathered the best men in the country, and signing up was not a mistake but an accident through no fault of our own."

"When I received my membership card it said I was an apprentice bricklayer and I, who was a great home builder at the time, couldn't help but have a good laugh."

"We don't want to see just one forward up front. To win you have to score. To have chances you've got to have forwards close to the goal, I appreciated Leonardo a lot but I disagreed with him in how he fielded the team. Ronaldinho must play on the shoulder of the strikers even if he has a tendency to drift left. Ronaldinho has been linked in the media with a move away but Berlusconi was adamant the playmaker was staying. He is the No1 attraction at Milan," he said, "Ronaldinho does not want to leave. I'm sure he is happy to stay. I would be happy for Gattuso to stay but we are not against people saying they want to leave, We can't exclude [the sale of Huntelaar] even if we are convinced of his qualities as a main striker."

"They called me, inviting me to watch L'Infedele. I'm watching a disgusting program, run in a despicable, vile and repulsive way. I've heard false and distorted views, far away from the truth. I've seen a representation of reality which is to the contrary of truth."

"I hope that in Egypt there can be a transition toward a more democratic system without a break from President Mubarak, who in the West, above all in the United States, is considered the wisest of men and a precise reference point."

"We are worried about everything happening there, in all the area. I haven't yet heard from Gaddafi. The situation is evolving and so I don't feel I should disturb anyone."

"Freedom means having the right to freely educate your children, and freely means no obligation to send them in a public school, where teachers want to inculcate principles different from the principles that their parents want to inculcate them in a familiar context."

"If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been Catch Me In Two Days."

"I did not make this film about Frank Abagnale because of what he did . . but because of what he has done with his life the past 30 years."

"He understood whatever those hidden mechanisms are that convince people to trust you. I kind of watched him and absorbed what I could from him."

"His chutzpah and his imagination in the scams and stings he pulled off were so imaginative and so courageous. Amazing. I loved the fact that he could pull off all of those professions. In a way, he's sort of the anti-hero that you root for, even though you know he's going to have to pay a price and go to jail"

"Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it 'U.R. Hooked' and cash it at any bank in town, using a Hong Kong driver's license for identification."

"I stole every nickel, dime and dollar and blew it on fine threads, luxurious lodgings, fantastic foxes and other sensual goodies. I partied in every capital in Europe and bask on all the worlds most famous beaches."

"If I had to place any blame for my future nefarious actions, I'd put it on the Ford. That Ford fractured every moral fiber in my body. It introduced me to girls, and I didn't come to my senses for six years. They were wonderful years."

"I made a lot of exits through side doors, down fire escapes or over rooftops. I abandoned more wardrobes in the course of five years than most men acquire in a lifetime. I was slipperier than a buttered escargot."

"Remember what being an adult is: It has nothing to do with money or awards."

"What I did in my youth is hundreds of times easier today. Technology breeds crime."

"I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating."

"Three casual expressions attributed to Mr. Tweed, illustrated by his brief political history, indicate his theory of administration. The first was, "The way to have power is to take it;" the second, "He is human;" and the third, "What are you going to do about it?" In his career was exhibited the despotic phase of municipal administration. He got for himself and his associates offices, one after the other, by taking them with or without right, until he held the power of the State, and then fortified his position by enacting appropriate laws. His means of doing this was to approach men through their self-interests, and to buy their support by promises, offices, and money. His appreciation of this trait in the character of the men about him was expressed in his belief that they were "human." The arrogance of the full possession of power and the defiance against the remonstrances of honest men drove him to the extreme of audacity, "What are you going to do about it?" which preceded his fall. There was no greater popular mistake than to call Mr. Tweed and his associates a "ring." They were so at the outset by the "cohesive power of public plunder," but, once in possession, like a crew of pirates who had gained the deck of a prize, they became arrayed against each other. If they had been a ring, their compactness of purpose might have constituted a government, but they had so little hold upon or confidence in each other that they dissolved at the first shock."

"I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles; my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures."