"If we get accustomed to getting rid of all politicians who have mistresses, then impotence will become the sign of those politicians with the highest merit. And that's not normal."
"Every day I have to study half a meter of files, attend 30 meetings, 16 to 18 hectic hours a day. Sometimes I don't sleep for three or four nights. I am a walking brain that from time to time takes in some food."
"I've done a couple of good things, without having received any advantages from them."
"My living standard is lower than that of half of the Slovak people. Despite that, I give away half of my wage. That's well known."
"You know what it's like to be on the top when below you is only air."
"I have my hands on the pulse of the nation. Do I need secret police when I feel every tremor of the nation? My tongue speaks the language of the nation. Its world of thought is my own world of thought, because I had to go through the same things that [the nation] did."
Slovak Premier Vladimír Mečiar during a four and a half hour interview with the German magazine Stern. The premier spoke in an uninterrupted monologue which exhausted the interpreter and drew on reserves of cassette recorder tapes.
