I am getting frustrated by the fact that we have been out of office for eight years. I desperately want to lead the Conservative Party to make quicker progress back into power.

I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe

I have never read it. You should not waste your time.

I am sorry to upset my colleagues by saying we wasted four years in opposition, but if you do get so badly defeated as a party you do have to face up to some painful facts and you do have to change.

Energetic action on debt would make a radical difference to the prospects of many of the poorest countries in the world, at no practical cost to creditor countries.

I am certainly not a blogger. Quite a large proportion of them are nuts and extremists - with the honourable exception of the culture secretary.

I trust that whoever leads the Conservative Party actually pays regard to my advice on how we should conduct ourselves and I personally will obviously support whoever eventually wins.

The political health of Britain has deteriorated very sharply. The Conservative Party must do something about it. I am the man to do it.

It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq.

Of course I'd have loved to be Prime Minister. But I'm not nursing a grievance.

However, we do not lack anti-terrorist laws. I do not believe that the recent London bombs were the result of any deficiencies in our legal system.

Those who try and fail are much wiser than those who never try for fear of failure.

Happiness is hard to recall. Its just a glow.

The liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all, it is on this and this alone that the true will of the people can develop.

As much as everyone says that Superman is good, a lot of other people might say that that's why they find him boring A lot of Batman fans might say that.

I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all.

I always try to think before I talk.

I just wish, maybe, that I'd started conducting earlier. I was about 40 when I started. Apart from that I don't really have any regrets. Is that bad?

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid- Light of my tents, be fleet- Morning awaits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet.

And who shall say--whatever disenchantment follows--that we ever forget magic; or that we can ever betray, on this leaden earth, the apple-tree, the singing, and the gold?

And my music is always such a release of what I feel inside, an impulse.