A legislature cannot be effective while suffering from public scorn.

I've never been much given to little social cliques.

Fairness is not about statistical equality.

If someone is being very cheeky, it can be quite fun to deal with that situation.

For far too long the House of Commons has been run as little more than a private club by and for gentleman amateurs.

I pride myself on being courteous to people, and trying to fashion good relations.

I am seeking every day to restore faith in Parliament - to ensure we have a House of Commons which is representative, effective and reconnected to the people we serve.

I never aspired to be Speaker simply so I could say, 'I am the Speaker of the House of Commons,' and tell my children that.

I think the record shows that as Speaker, I have taken the lead in cleaning up politics.

I don't want to crawl over the entrails of past disputes.

It's a cowardly form of politics to use my spouse to beat me.

Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.

Find something beautiful to focus on daily and allow Inspiration to have its way with you.

I make one request:love me.Not convenient loveor conditional love.Rather the kind of lovewhere eyes meet& souls greet.Where the depthis unfathomable.

Not to get too deep on shaving my mustache, but it was kind of symbolic of, 'This is a moment of liberation, a chance to reinvent yourself.' That's kind of what I did.

Liberal capitalism is not at all the Good of humanity. Quite the contrary; it is the vehicle of savage, destructive nihilism.

I think about all my successes and failures and sometimes the failures stick in your head as much as the wins. But you do move on.

Not every work of art is or need be a heavily profound statement.

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something.

In romance, there's nothing more attractive to a man than a woman who has dignity and pride in who she is.

So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.