“Life isn’t like coursework, baby. It’s one damn essay crisis after another.”

Never in my life did I think I would be congratulated by Mick Jagger for achieving anything.

I lead a life of blameless domesticity and always have done.

We did everything we could to break down barriers that restrain poorest.

Yes, cannabis is dangerous, but no more than other perfectly legal drugs. It’s time for a rethink, and the Tory party – the funkiest, most jiving party on Earth – is where it’s happening.

Do you seriously propose that they are going to be so insane as to allow tariffs to be imposed. The EU is, I’m afraid a job destroying engine. You can see it all across southern Europe, you can see it, alas, in our country.

I think the risks that people see of terrorism are incredibly important but we are very confident we have got the right people on it and the risks have been minimised.

Nothing excites compassion, in friend and foe alike, as much as the sight of you ker-splonked on the Tarmac with your propeller buried six feet under.

I don’t believe that economic equality is possible; indeed some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy and keeping up with the Joneses that is, like greed, a valuable spur to economic activity.

When Cameron’s Conservatives come to power it will be a golden age for cyclists and an Elysium of cycle lanes, bike racks, and sharia law for bike thieves. And I hope that cycling in London will become almost Chinese in its ubiquity.

Our friends in America will be at the front of the queue for trade deals.

In 1904, 20 per cent of journeys were made by bicycle in London. I want to see a figure like that again. If you can’t turn the clock back to 1904, what’s the point of being a Conservative?

If we judged everybody by the stupid, unguarded things they blurt out to their nearest and dearest, then we wouldn’t ever get anywhere.

Some people think that it [Brexit] is the end of the world. It’s not. On the contrary, it’s a massive opportunity for this country.

All the people I talk to, increasingly, can see that the emperor has got no clothes. The case for leaving [the EU] is now overwhelming.

I would ban sweets from school – but this pressure to bring in healthy food is too much.

We celebrate the contribution of people who have come to this country to make it better.

Reading ‘Legitimation Crisis’ in Tehran is nothing less than a masterpiece of moral and political criticism.

We warned when the crisis began in 2011 that unless it was resolved quickly

I’m really good in a crisis, because I don’t panic.

A pioneer in this genre [ writing about the refugee crisis] : the book A Seventh Man, by the great John Berger, decades ago evoked the lives of migrant workers in Europe.

All of us living in today’s world are facing an enormous crisis – arguably the greatest that humanity has ever faced

I think writers can respond by writing about the refugee crisis, by looking at problems faced by migrants, by trying hard to portray them as the human beings that they are.

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great individuals, like great companies, find a way to transform weakness into strength.

A lot of people would say, to be truthful is to tell all, every dalliance, every crisis. They might be right on paper, but in practice, it’s not a great way to go.