"Let's not talk about communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky."
-- 1989, on a visit to the US.
"Strikes have already begun in Leningrad and some factories in the Urals have walked out. Wherever my appeal for a strike is heard, people back it."
- August 19th, 1991, after he climbed on a tank outside parliament and urged supporters to resist communist hardliners who had launched a coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev.
"Life has shown us with some brutality that Russia cannot feel safe without its own national guard."
- August, 22nd, 1991, to adulating supporters after the coup was thwarted.
"[The war] may have been one of my mistakes."
-- on the Chechen war he began in 1994.
"It just happened -- what can one do?"
-- September 30th, 1994, explaining that he had overslept on a refuelling stop in Ireland, failing to meet the taoiseach, Albert Reynolds.
"A man must live like a great bright flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But that is better than a mean little flame."
- 1990, talking to a reporter.
"We are stuck half way, having left the old shore; we keep floundering in a stream of problems which engulf us and prevent us from reaching a new shore."
-- 1997 state of the nation address, about painful transition to a capitalist economy.
"Emotions sometimes get the upper hand in assessing the Russian-American partnership. This is not the approach that Bill and I have."
-- March 1997, at a news conference with US president Bill Clinton after their summit.
"The eastward expansion of Nato is a mistake and a serious one at that. Nevertheless, in order to minimise the negative consequences for Russia, we decided to sign an agreement with Nato."
- on Nato enlargement, at the same news conference.
- (Reuters)