The art of politics is learning to walk with your back to the wall, your elbows high, and a smile on your face. It's a survival game played under the… - Jean Chrétien

I didn't feel the need to have a lot of yes-men standing around me. As Mitchell Sharp once put it, the bigger the staff, the smaller the minister.

Once when I was Prime Minister, I came back from an international conference, and I set foot in Canada... To me, there, I said: Chrétien, you've got the easiest job of all these guys there, from all round the globe. Original: Quand j'étais premier ministre, pis je revenais d'une conférence internationale, pis je mettais le pied au Canada ... À moi, là, je dis : Chrétien, tu as la job la plus facile de tous ces gars-là alentour du globe.

The two of us had come a long way together from our humble beginnings and the basement apartment that had been our first home as newlyweds in 1957, when I was still a law student at Laval University in Quebec City.