“The job of mayor of London is unbelievably taxing, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics.”

London is the sporting capital of the world. I say to the Chinese and I say to the world, ping pong is coming home.

I love tennis with a passion. I challenged Boris Becker to a match once and he said he was up for it but he never called back. I bet I could make him run around.

There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge.

It just happens I write fast and always have done.

My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.

It hasn’t taken them long, they began by telling us they would have a positive and patriotic case and they’re back to project fear within minutes. There they go again they have nothing positive to say.

The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition.

My ideal world is, we’re there, we’re in the EU, trying to make it better.

But if people want to swim in the Thames, if they want to take their lives into their own hands, then they should be able to do so with all the freedom and exhilaration of our woad-painted ancestors.

Volunteering is also now more crucial than ever in helping people find work.

I’m no communist. I’m a tax cutting Conservative. But I want a capitalism that is fairer to forgotten people.

I cant remember what my line on drugs is. Whats my line on drugs?

If gay marriage was OK … then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog.

Some people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.

Churchill knew instinctively what was wrong with communism – that it repressed liberty; that it replaced individual discretion with state control; that it entailed the curtailment of democracy, and therefore that it was tyrannous.

The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.

No, I don’t do drugs anymore, either. But I’ll tell you something about drugs. I used to do drugs, but I’ll tell you something honestly about drugs, honestly, and I know it’s not a very popular idea, you don’t hear it very often anymore, but it is the truth,

I don’t show my body for a good cause… if one day in a concert I pull down my pants, I would leave without job to those reporters who say I’m a woman

When the phone started ringing too many times, I had to take it back to what I can handle. I take my chances on a job or a person as opposed to a situation. I don’t like to have a situation placed over my head.

I had a lot of fans in New York. The press would write about me, but I couldn’t get a paying job.

I’ve been a slave to football. It follows you home, it follows you everywhere, and eats into your family life. But every working man misses out on some things because of his job.

If you see players who hate practice, their coach isn’t doing a very good job.

NASA is an engine of innovation and inspiration as well as the world’s premier space exploration agency, and we are well served by politicians working to keep it that way, instead of turning it into a mere jobs program, or worse, cutting its budget.

Many men beg for a job but have no clue what hard work really means.