Compiled by Anita Lišková

“I think this was the right choice, because the other candidates were really poor and completely incompetent to be president.”
– former ice-hockey player Pavel Richter, answering the question if he is satisfied with the selection of Václav Klaus as president.

“Miloš Zeman repeated several times in the past that he would return only in the event of a crisis. And because he needed this crisis, the crisis was created.”
– Minister of Interior Stanislav Gross regarding former ČSSD leader Miloš Zeman, who left politics to relax at Vysočina, but who still tries to control political events.

“Czech society took delight in having the most stupid and cowardly communist regime here, except for maybe the one in the Soviet Union. Compared to our communists, the Polish ones, for example, were wise philosophers. And still there are so many people who vote for this party which cannot be reformed.”
– writer Pavel Tigrid lamenting the past and present of communism.

“Private owners were looking for private investors, and since the beginning they asked for state assistance. This was based on the presumption that market economy functions like this: if I have profits, I am going to divide them in private. The losses I will share in solidarity with the whole of society.”
-ČSSD MP Jan Mládek in Parliament discussing central bank and the banking sector in the Czech Republic in the early 1990s.