Fairness is not about statistical equality.

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

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.

A legislature cannot be effective while suffering from public scorn.

Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met, and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.

Whenever there is chaos it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift.

I looked at him like he was an idiot, but he didn’t notice. Or maybe he got it so often, he thought that was how people looked at him.

It had been a perfect nap - the sort a man runs into now and again by chance.

I write storys to entertain not to be the best

For me it sounds weird saying that the filmmakers respect the film. I don't imagine that there's other ways to make a film, but unfortunately there is.

I just never was the marrying kind.

She had made him possible. In that sense she was his god. Like God, she was neglected.

Love is the supreme value around which all moral values can be integrated into one ethical system valid for the whole of humanity.

It is of far more important that a man shall play something himself, even if he plays it badly, than that he shall go with hundreds of companions to see someone else play well.