The BBC provides the commentary on our lives, the soundtrack of the nation. It is one of the most powerful unifying forces in the United Kingdom today.

It was an interesting question as to whether the BBC had a future in the digital world, and what form of market failure could justify the licence fee system.

The BBC should not have a cheerleader. It should have somebody who runs the organisation in the interests of the public and that should be a chairman.

I want the BBC to be a mass market public service broadcaster still funded by the licence fee... and the licence fee is more durable than many people in the commercial sector believe.

Inflation is not always the main problem, or indeed a problem at all. Sometimes, though rarely, deflation is a more serious threat, and we need to shelve many of the orthodoxies we have held so dear.

The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in meOlder and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.

A patient willingness to defer dividends is a hallmark of individual maturity.

Your life is nothing buy a reflection of your thoughts. Your life will only change when you change your thoughts.

The very idea of "managing" a forest in the first place is oxymoronic, because a forest is an ecosystem that is by definition self-managing.

I gather from a lawyer that there was a rehearsal yesterday. We haven't a hope. I know the presiding judge too: I've had the misfortune to sleep with his wife. He was specially picked.

Failures are the stepping stones to success.

If Irish or Italian culture dies in America it really isn't that big a deal. They will still exist in Italy and Ireland. Not so with us. There is no other place. North America is our old country.

How sweetly sounds the voice of a good woman! It is so seldom heard that, when it speaks,it ravishes all senses.

Your life is big. Keep reaching.

I'm a real common sense guy who caught a lot of good breaks and who has been very, very fortunate.