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Dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I've always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world.

Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.

It's pretty well known that the CIA has been installing friendly dictators around the world for years.

Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be trusted to change.

Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

It is hard to look the other way when a dictator is being so cruel and violent with his own people.

Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy - citizens devoted to the democratic ideals - do not constantly oppose them.

I am sometimes accused of being a dictator because I provoked the extraordinary elections by nominating the interim government. Can you imagine any dictator who provokes free elections in his own country?

The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.