I don't want to have people brought in simply because they are black or Asian.

The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.

Human rights are not worthy of the name if they do not protect the people we don't like as well as those we do.

There's no secret about my ambition, I do not want to go into the House of Commons. My only real political interest is in London and if one day I'm in a position to run for mayor, then terrific.

We need more male black teachers, tempting them with extra cash if necessary.

Across the board, people are looking at the problem, but simply not changing anywhere near fast enough.

My brother and I have too good a relationship to spoil it by working together.

Prison service vans that travel 90 miles to take a prisoner 90 yards; paedophiles free to leer at children in the very parks where they have committed horrific crimes.

You can't say 'because we decide we're different then we need a different set of laws.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens is my favourite book.

I ask questions, and a large part of my life has been spent asking questions of Ken Livingstone.

The hallmark of intelligence is not whether one believes in God or not, but the quality of the processes that underlie one’s beliefs.

Stand firm. Stand tall.

Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.

I believe one would write better if the climate were bad. If there were a lot of wind and storms for example.

More books have resulted from somebody's need to write than from anybody's need to read.

It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.

A computer shall not waste your time or require you to do more work than is strictly necessary.

You never know people, do you? You can work with 'em for twenty years; you don't know 'em at all.

I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.