“We don’t, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren.”

If English is spoken in heaven. God undoubtedly employs Cranmer as his speechwriter. The angels of the lesser ministries probably use the language of the New English Bible and the Alternative Service Book for internal memos.

Why can’t we have those curves and arches that express feeling in design? What is wrong with them? Why has everything got to be vertical, straight, unbending, only at right angles – and functional?

If you chuck away too many things, you end up discovering there was value in them.

We should be treating, I think, the whole issue of climate change and global warming with a far greater degree of priority than I think is happening now.

There’s nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.

You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that.

This was one of those special occasions when I could actually feel the inner appreciation of the beauty of the moment passing like an electric current through the brush in my hand.

One of the main reasons for the conflict in Syria, and the terrorism that it’s spawned, is climate change and drought.

I think we’re going to find, with climate change and everything else, things like global warming and goodness knows what else and the cost of fuel for a start, that things are going to become very complicated.

I think we’d be very foolish to expect that we can just import everything from somewhere else and imagine that that’s going to last for ever and ever and ever.

I sometimes wonder if two thirds of the globe is covered in red carpet.

Do you seriously expect me to be the first Prince of Wales in history not to have a mistress?

I was totally absorbed. I was in another world, or another dimension; all sense of time evaporated.

As technology advances at an alarming pace, the place of drawing remains as valid as ever in the creation of art and architecture.

The demand for organic food is growing at a remarkable rate. Consumers have made it clear that they want organic produce and every sector of the food chain is responding, with the kind of results we have just seen.

A jostling scrum of office buildings so mediocre that the only way you ever remember them is by the frustration they induce – like a basketball team standing shoulder to shoulder between you and the Mona Lisa.

I think every young child can learn through any martial art. They would then learn to respect their life, respect their parents, respect their country, and respect the whole world.

The most inspirational man I knew only reached his potential by helping a child reach his.

In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay, there are a lot more coming along.

I was brought up as an only child, and we were very close. But when I was 14, we got evicted. We came home to a padlock, and I looked up at my mom and she was crying, and there was nothing to do.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God Bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and paid forward for the next kid who comes along.

I’m happy in Madrid, my kids are happy and my wife is happy, so everything’s good. If anyone knows about contracts they take a while to sort out.

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

When I was a kid, I thought my dad was a little bit harsh with me at times. Sometimes I needed an arm around me instead of my dad telling me what I did wrong, but it obviously worked.