This is not a time to quail, it is not a crisis, nor should we see it as an excuse for wobbling or self-doubt. But it is a moment for hope...

I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.

It is just flipping unbelievable. He is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall.

My speaking style was criticised by no less an authority than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a low moment, my friends, to have my rhetorical skills denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.

It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time.

My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.

The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.

My ideal world is, we're there, we're in the EU, trying to make it better.

There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge.

In 1904, 20 per cent of journeys were made by bicycle in London. I want to see a figure like that again. If you can't turn the clock back to 1904, what's the point of being a Conservative?

I am supporting David Cameron purely out of cynical self-interest.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

Mitt Romney, happens to have the exact skill set that the next president's going to require.

Frida Kahlo taught me a lot without ever bragging about anything.

Tranquility is the Truth, Truth is beauty beauty is happiness and bliss is divine

I think sometimes the way to preserve the magic of a book is to throw it away - meaning, not to cling to the way a book does its magic but to find a cinematic equivalent.

you...are...a...frige...with...wings...we...are...freaking...ballet...dancers!

If one or two works from a body of work for an exhibition are what you would like to be remembered by, it is a good exhibition.

You marry a non-graduate, then you are going to worry if your son or daughter is going to make it to the university.

The first thing I look for is the humor, because you can tell what the character's fears and insecurities are through the humor.

and where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine