BEPPE GRILLO

I am still a comic, a fantastic one.

We need to stop the vicious cycle of debt that is strangling us.

For the Americans, laws are barriers to profits; it's a different mentality.

Italy is a tough country to be a comedian in - I can't invent stuff like this. Nearly eighty crooks in Parliament - that's about one crook in twelve. It's worse than Scampia, the most dangerous Naples slum, which is infested by the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia. There, the criminals are only one in fifteen!

This world - the Western world - has failed. We must have a plan B. We're the plan B.

It is so obvious that we are constantly monitored and manipulated both in advertising and in politics.

We became the first political movement in Italy, and the media didn't even realize it.

One of our main objectives is to restore meritocracy within research and academia, where cronyism is also widespread. We also want to give money back to public research that is dying.

The art of the compromise, which was the art of politics, is no longer valid. Compromise needs to be between citizens, not between Republicans and Democrats.

Israel is frightening. Its behaviour is irresponsible.

My role is that of the watchdog.

I am in favour of a different Europe, where each state can adopt its fiscal and monetary system.

The immigration flows have to be controlled. We have to know who comes into Italy. The problem shouldn't be left to oversized, dysfunctional, nongovernmental groups.

Artificial intelligence is destroying the traditional world of work.

The ECB puts out money that is meant to help our banks, but they do not use it to finance our businesses, but they give it to them to buy back their debt, to help French and German banks.

Europe was born with Jean Monnet but then was progressively transformed.

The Internet creates transparency, creates a change of mentality, brings people together.

It is the Internet that changes: the Internet is not just a language; it modifies relationships, the way we look at the world.

Vaccines have played a fundamental role in eradicating terrible illnesses such as polio, diphtheria, and hepatitis. However, they bring a risk associated with side-effects that are usually temporary and surmountable... but, in very rare cases, can be as severe as getting the same disease you're trying to be immune to.

Left and right in Italy, they've always pretended to fight.

We're a movement of many people who are uniting from the bottom up. We don't have structures, hierarchies, bosses, secretaries... No one gives us orders.

I'm a comedian. You have to understand that my brain doesn't work like a politician's brain.

I threw my TV out years ago.

5SM is an ecumenical movement.

When China was only Communist, everyone received the Dalai Lama, but now that China is hyper-capitalist, he gets blacked out.