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" I never thought about becoming a politician. But during the military dictatorship, my grandfather was put in prison six times and my father twice. If my family and my country didn't have this history, I might be a professor somewhere today. "

George Papandreou

Family

Today

Father

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" It is important that the Greek people make decisions on important developments. "

" Previous governments, particularly the one before I took over, mismanaged the economy quite badly. "

" Markets are saying pretty much what I'm saying too: that Greece is doing what it can, but that Greece is not going to be able to carry the weight of all of Europe and the other problems that Europe has. "

" As long as I feel I am doing what I think is right and just for my country, for the Greek people, that is enough for me. Saving Greece from this crisis was the first thing on the agenda. We are now on a much more normalised road. "

George Papandreou

Think

Long

" We in Europe have great capacities. "

" We're very proud to be part of the eurozone. But this comes with obligations and it is crucial we show the world we can live up to those obligations. "

" I would say we are a friend in need and I am sure that the Greek people would very much welcome the choice of the British people to come and enjoy Greece, first of all, but also that would be a sign of support. "

" I never thought of politics as a profession. "

" People would say you look weak if you're not cursing the opposition and driving around in a big black car while always wearing a tie. Above all, to be 'strong' you're always supposed to be giving orders. "

" We have a rise of extremism because we need to give a sense that we are targeting some of the deeper problems in Greece, the injustices. "

" The unemployed in Greece can get a voucher and choose a training program somewhere in Europe to be retrained during this crisis and when this crisis is over, we make sure that that person hasn't fallen off the cliff and can come back into the labor market with new skills to find a job. "

" My hope is that we will turn Greece into maybe the most transparent country in the world with everything on the web. "

" Greece has great strengths, but much of this potential has been wasted. That's because of a wider political system, but also because of a lack of an institutional framework. "

" Many people have been pontificating, and patronizing, and moralizing, and scapegoating, saying you Greeks, you are the problem. I would say we Greeks have a problem. We are not the problem. "

" First of all, Greece won't go down. We're talking about a country that is capable of making change. Europe will not allow the destabilization of the 27-country euro zone. But if there were no action, then markets would start becoming jittery about other countries - and not only Spain and Portugal, but other countries in the European Union. "

" You can theorise about the options you have but in reality they are very specific. "

" We are on a difficult course, on a new Odyssey for Greece, but we know the road to Ithaca and have charted the waters. "

" There is this concept of politics as a dirty game. "

" The fact that we're going through a crisis is an opportunity for Europe to be more coordinated and more integrated. We're actually talking about a European Monetary Fund or euro bonds, about guarantees for countries, about economic governance in the European Union. That shows the strength of Europe. "

" But sovereign debt is a wider question not only in Europe but across the globe. While every country is a unique case, I think it's not an issue of countries acting on their own. We need a more coordinated strategy not only in Europe but around the world. "

" How can a parliamentarian or a leader in a country say, on the one hand, that we're going to support Greece but at the same time say that Greeks are lazy? "

" At times of distress, we all like to recall the advice of fathers and mothers. The best advice my father gave me was to keep faith and deep confidence in the potential of the Greek people; nurture the belief that they can do things. "

" I am proud of being a Greek of the diaspora. "

George Papandreou

Being

Greek

" If we were the problem, it would be very convenient - kick Greece out, everything's fine. What would happen to Spain, what about Portugal, what about Italy, what about the whole of the euro zone? We need more cooperation and less simplification and prejudice. "

" There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come. "

" We are a country with great potential. We have the political will to make deep changes in a just and equitable way, to put our country back on a development path, to meet the challenges of a new world. "

" Greece's history in the drachma was an up-and-down history, a roller coaster. "

" Greece has given Europe the opportunity to fix a defect in the euro zone, that is the fact that we did not have a fiscal union. Now steps have been taken to begin that process. And there is more solidarity from nation to nation, and that is a good thing. That has been Greece's gift to Europe. "

" The more there is a European solution to a theoretical, but possible, problem in the markets, the less we will have to talk about an I.M.F. solution. "

" Markets themselves are looking for stability, and I think we have underestimated the capacity of Europe... to actually create a more stable framework for the whole issue of debt management, bonds, and so on. "