Verbatim

'France is a country that thinks. There is hardly an ideology that we haven't turned into a theory ... Enough thinking, already. Roll up your sleeves.'

CHRISTINE LAGARDE, newly appointed French Finance Minister, proposing a tax cut that would encourage the nation's people to work harder

'He was so inept and so inartful.'

MARGARET SPELLINGS, Secretary of Education, on why she turned down a date with Karl Rove in the early '80s

'In the horror movie you kill the monster, and the hand re-emerges. And if you're not looking, the hand grows back and the monster's there again.'

RUDY GIULIANI, former New York City mayor, insisting that the Administration should focus on al-Qaeda's resurgence in Pakistan and Afghanistan

'How long are we going to allow a person ... to come into our own house and to say there's a dictatorship here?'

HUGO CHAVEZ, President of Venezuela, announcing that he will expel visiting foreigners who publicly criticize his government

'This is a victory of the principles which our Indian people uphold.'

PRATIBHA PATIL, India's first female President, on winning a high, if mostly ceremonial, office in a country where women face much discrimination

'Thank God, Russia has never been a British colony.'

VLADIMIR PUTIN, President of Russia, denouncing British demands for extradition of the Russian spy accused of murdering Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London last year

Sources: New York Times; Washington Post; USA Today; MSNBC; New York Times; Guardian