PARIS - Some pungent quotes from around the world in 2008.

PRESIDENTIAL HOUSE-HUSBAND

"Have you prepared breakfast for your wife this morning?" March 8.

-- German Chancellor Angela Merkel puts Russian President Vladimir Putin on the spot on International Women's Day.

OVER MY DEAD BODY

"It will never happen as long as we are still alive." March 22.

-- President Robert Mugabe tells Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) it will have to wait its turn for government.

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD DIVORCEE

"I am happy that I am divorced now. I will be able to go back to school." April 15.

-- Eight year-old Nojud Mohammed Ali, after a Yemeni court grants her a divorce after she was forced by her father into an arranged marriage.

NO BONES FOR KADHAFI

"We are not starving and we are not dogs begging to be given a bone." June 10.

-- Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi opposes proposals for a European-backed Mediterranean Union.

NUNS' BEAUTY CONTEST

"You really think all nuns are old, stunted and sad? This isn't the case any more, thanks to the arrival in our country of young and vital nuns." August 24.

-- Priest Antonio Rungi on plans for a nuns' beauty pageant.

BITE

"You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick." September 3.

-- Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate, veering off her prepared speech in front of the Republican convention.

SURPRISE

"It was a bit out of nowhere." September 15.

-- A London-based analyst of Lehman Brothers, after the American investment bank filed for bankruptcy.

SHOCK

"I decided to find out what schmuck won this year. So I opened up my laptop and found out I was the schmuck." October 8.

-- Martin Chalfie who shared the Nobel Chemistry prize with fellow US scientist Roger Tsien and Osamu Shimomura of Japan.

"YES WE CAN"

"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." November 4.

-- Barack Obama, first African-American to be elected president of the United States

'TANNED' OBAMA

"He's young, he's handsome and he is tanned." November 6.

-- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on US president-elect Barack Obama whose mother is white and whose father is black.