“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.”

Something as curious as the monarchy won’t survive unless you take account of people’s attitudes. After all, if people don’t want it, they won’t have it.

It is frightening how dependent on drugs we are all becoming and how easy it is for doctors to prescribe them as the universal panacea for our ills.

I find myself born into this particular position. I’m determined to make the most of it. And to do whatever I can to help. And I hope I leave things behind a little bit better than I found them.

All the time I feel I must justify my existence.

Any difficulties which the world faces today will be as nothing compared to the full effects which global warming will have on the world-wide economy.

I learned the way a monkey learns – by watching its parents.

As human beings we suffer from an innate tendency to jump to conclusions; to judge people too quickly and to pronounce them failures or heroes without due consideration of the actual facts and ideals of the period.

The less people know about what is really going on, the easier it is to wield power and authority.

Christianity was literally born in the Middle East, and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ.

There is very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land.

If you think about your and my grandchildren, this is what really worries me. I don’t want them – if I’m still alive by then – to say, ‘Why didn’t you do something about it?’, when you could have done.

Climate change should be seen as the greatest challenge to face man and treated as a much bigger priority in the United Kingdom.

Be neither too remote nor too familiar.

It is baffling, I must say, that in our modern world we have such blind trust in science and technology that we all accept what science tells us about everything – until, that is, it comes to climate science.

Father told me that if I ever met a lady in a dress like yours, I must look her straight in the eyes.

Only the other day I was inquiring of an entire bed of old-fashioned roses, forced to listen to my ramblings on the meaning of the universe as I sat cross-legged in the lotus position in front of them.