| Famous bytes of 2008 |
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."
- US President-elect Barack Obama, delivering his Election Night victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park after winning the 2008 Presidential Election
"It`s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."
- US President-elect Barack Obama during his victory speech in Chicago
"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he`s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."
- Gov Sarah Palin
"Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."
- Sen John McCain to Barack Obama during the third and final Presidential debate
"Only God who appointed me will remove me."
- Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, refusing to cede power to opponent Morgan Tsvangirai regardless of the results of a June 27 Presidential runoff election
"The path will be a little easier next time."
- Hillary Clinton, thanking her supporters after ending her bid to become the first female President of the US
"When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me — and this is the God`s truth — she sent me back out and said, `Bloody their nose so you can walk down the street the next day.` And that`s what I did."
- Sen Joe Biden, at the Democratic National Convention
"They needed a small, victorious war."
- Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister, claiming the US engineered the Georgia conflict to boost support for the Republican Party
"Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place."
- Nelson Mandela, former South African President, in letter to Barack Obama on being elected the 44th President of the US
"Unbelievable! Obama`s coming — make way!"
- Mwai Kibaki, Kenyan President, on Barack Obama`s election win
"You can put lipstick on a pig. It`s still a pig."
- US President-elect Barack Obama, during the election campaign, in what sounded like an attack on Republican vice-president nominee Sarah Palin
"I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes."
- Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in his resignation speech
"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can invade its neighbour, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."
- Condoleezza Rice on military clashes between Russia and Georgia
"Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises."
- Pope Benedict XVI on the perils of materialism
"You are my lord, you`re my darling, you`re my orgy, my charming prince."
- Carla Bruni-Sarkozy`s tribute to husband, Nicholas Sarkozy, President of France
"I think that, in retrospect, I could have used a different rhetoric. Phrases such as `bring them on` or `dead of alive` indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace."
- US President George W Bush regrets being so hawkish over Iraq
"They can examine my pulse, my urine, my stool, everything."
- The Dalai Lama invites Chinese authorities to investigate whether he was behind the rioting in Tibet
"It`s not allowed for a woman to sit with a strange man and talk and drink coffee together."
- Saudi Arabia defends the arrest of a US woman for having coffee with a colleague
"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."
- Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologises for the past mistreatment of Aborigines
"Musharraf has destroyed Pakistan. The whole of Pakistan is drowned in blood."
- Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif on former President Pervez Musharraf, while he was still in office
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