If this enormous pressure didn't exist, I wouldn't have been elected. It would have been one of the usual candidates.

I thoroughly believe that reading and literature can help a society to better understand itself.

That might sound shocking to some - and don't worry, I don't see myself as a king.

Ambition is never modest. If modesty means to have middling success, then I can only say: I'm not interested.

We will succeed, because we are fully committed, because, wherever we live, whoever we are, we all share the same responsibility: Make our planet great again.

I had decided that I wanted a dog from an animal shelter. Normally, presidents have purebred dogs, but my is a Labrador-griffon mix. Absolutely adorable.

For me, Europe consists of three things: sovereignty, unity and democracy.

I refuse to give into the sad reflex of French envy because this envy paralyzes our country.

My predecessor taxed wealthy, successful people at a higher rate than ever before. And what happened? They left. And what came of it? Did unemployment drop? No.

I have great respect for Angela Merkel, even if we have a lot of differences.

Post-modernism was the worst thing that could have happened to our democracy. The idea that you have to deconstruct and destroy all grand narratives is not a good one.

Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we're all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.

Half the secret of getting along with people is consideration of their values the other half is tolerance in one's own views.

When you first saw 'The Truman Show,' did anyone else walk around for the next week not picking your nose just in case?

I'm not ready to do any compromises for my work.

I have really low self-esteem, and it's not easy for me to put myself on an album cover.

There's always been a potential erotic possibility with objects.

It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.

I brought the Beetle to life with a roar. Well. Not really a roar. A Volkswagen Bug doesn't roar. But it sort of growled.

We meet. We always meet, somehow we're always thrown together, no matter where I go, no matter how I try to distance myself from you. It never matters. You always find me.

Let us not satisfy ourselves with a knowledge of God in the mass; a glance upon a picture never directs you to the discerning the worth and art of it.