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

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.

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.

Whether our days trip along like the angels mounting on Jacob's ladder to heaven or grind along like the wagons that Joseph sent for Jacob, they are in each case ordered by God's mercy.

I have come to understand that every day is something to cherish.

Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men have the same moral nature, they have the same rights.

The mostimportant victory is the one which has to arrive.

When people discuss religion, it is a pity that they often become excited and argue. We should merely listen, as one does on a dark night; we should merely gaze at the stars.

Insofar as we, critics of the black tradition, master our craft, we serve both to preserve our own traditions and to shape their direction. All great writers demand great critics.

I'm not one for flings, I can tell you that.

Discipline and freedom are not mutually exclusive but mutually dependent because otherwise, you'd sink into chaos.

Most people manage pain by eating, drinking, smoking, distracting themselves, working harder. That's just managing pain, the pain that comes from not feeling fully alive from not growing.

When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.