Borders are always dictated by the strong, never by the weak.… We simply consider it as a legitimate right and interest of the Serb nation to live in one state. This is the beginning and the end.… If we have to fight, by God we are going to fight. I hope that they will not be so crazy as to fight against us. If we do not know how to work properly or run an economy, at least we know how to fight properly.

Remarks at a meeting with Serb leaders (16 March 1991), as quoted in Doder and Branson (1999) Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant