[resignation speech, 12/31/99] Russia must enter the new millennium with new politicians, with new faces, with new, smart, strong, energetic people. And we who have been in power for many years already, we must go. Show less «

[from his 1994 memoir "The Struggle for Russia"] The debilitating bouts of depression, the grave second thoughts, the insomnia and headaches in the middle of the night, the tears and despair . . . the hurt from people close to me who did not support me at the last minute, who didn't hold up, who deceived me - I have had to bear all of this. Show less «

[resignation speech, 12/31/99] I ask forgiveness for not justifying some hopes of those people who believed that at one stroke, in one spurt, we could leap from the gray, stagnant, totalitarian past into the light, rich civilized future. I myself believed in this, that we could overcome everything in one spurt. Show less «