Quotes from Christine Lagarde

Gender-dominated environments are not good... particularly in the financial sector where there are too few women. In gender-dominated environments, men have a tendency to... show how hairy chested they are, compared with the man who's sitting next to them. I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room.

I'm proud that somebody like myself has made it to the very top.

I love cooking. Not for myself alone. Cooking is about giving.

My father passed away after three years of debilitating disease, which transformed a very strong and bright man into a real wreck. And that is hard. You have to get out of that stronger, if you can, which I was lucky to be able to. I was the eldest of the family, and I had to support my mother and help my brothers.

The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself.

Very often as a little girl, then as a young woman, I have suffered my lot of discrimination. I was brought up with brothers; I grew up in a boys' world. You have to elbow your way in. When you come with that sentiment of having been in a minority for a long period of time, then you are much more attentive to minorities.

The Egyptian society needs to include its women if it wants to have economic prosperity.

Think about it. Women control 70 percent of global consumer spending . . . when women do better, economies do better.

The Europeans governments have massively changed the landscape in Europe. There is no doubt about it. They have put together the European Financial Stability Fund. They have discussed and approved the European Stability Mechanism.

I guess economists, it's a bit like scientists, you have definitely fewer women in that field.

I'm very much a believer that it's action that matters much more so than, you know, the flurry of political promises and statements and slogans that are used during political campaigns.

We need to put our good research, our good work, our principles into actionable items whenever we can.

I look under the skin of countries' economies, and I help them make better decisions and be stronger, to prosper and create employment.

I think there are multiple studies now to demonstrate that diversity, a better balance between genders, but also between different fields as well, is actually conducive to better growth, better bottom line, better results.

I'm not in the business of reading tea leaves. I don't have a crystal ball.

I learned that you can constantly improve, and that you should not be shy about your views, and about the direction that you believe is right.

I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.