From Caesar's legions to the Napoleonic wars. From the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution to the defeat of nazism. We have helped to write European history, and Europe has helped write ours.

Terms are like shredded wheat - two are wonderful, but three might just be too many.

When you're taking the country through difficult times and difficult decisions you've got to take the country with you. That means permanently trying to make the argument that what you're doing is fair and seen to be fair.

You do not have to be an economist to know that putting up the cost of employing someone is a pretty barking thing to do when you're trying to get out of a recession.

I believe in the family. I believe in marriage, and I think it's such a great institution. I think men should be able to marry each other, and women should be able to marry each other.

Elections aren't about records, they're about plans and choices.

I think it true that, you know, sometimes things start to change even before a government changes and, actually, I think you can begin to see even the Labour machine beginning to understand that it has become over-reliant on targets and processes, that local governments have been over-bossed and bullied.

2012 has been an extraordinary year for our country. We cheered our Queen to the rafters with the Jubilee, showed the world what we're made of by staging the most spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and - let's not forget - punched way above our weight in the medals table.

The saddest moment as Prime Minister is writing letters to families who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan or those who we have tried to help in hostage situations but it hasn't worked out.

In a global race, can we really justify the huge number of expensive peripheral European institutions? Can we justify a commission that gets ever larger? Can we carry on with an organisation that has a multibillion pound budget but not enough focus on controlling spending and shutting down programmes that haven't worked?

One of the pleas you get when you're talking to the tourist industry or the energy industry or the whoever is, 'Please, can we just have the same minister for longer than five minutes?'

I do think 'Gogglebox' is extraordinarily insightful, and I think if politicians want to understand how we are viewed at home, it's quite recommended viewing.

If you can work and if you're offered a job and you don't take it, you cannot continue to claim benefits. It will be extremely tough.

We will say to people that if you can work, and if you want to work, we will do everything we can to help you. We will give you the training, we will give you the support, we will give you the advice to get you going and get you back at work.

At a time when we're having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.

We need the Chinese to - you know, spend more, save less - consume more and not be so focused on exports. There are big changes we need in the world.

Cap the well, yes. Clear up the mess, yes. Make compensation - yes, absolutely. But would it be right to have legislation that independently targets BP rather than other companies? I don't think that - would be right.

I think we need to just be very clear about what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. Frankly, we're not trying to create the perfect democracy. We're never going to create some ideal society. We are simply there for our own national security.

Yes, America must do the right thing, but to provide moral leadership, America must do it in the right way, too.

It does not seem to me that the steps which would be needed to make Britain - and others - more comfortable in their relationship in the European Union are inherently so outlandish or unreasonable.

If we are going to try to get across to the poorest people in the world that we care about their plight and we want them to join one world with the rest of us, we have got to make promises and keep promises.

I don't want to be Prime Minister of England, I want to be Prime Minister of the whole of the United Kingdom.

I watched, for the 17th and hopefully the last time, The 'Guns of Navarone' on New Year's Eve. I always watch just in case the explosives don't go off in the end. You have to watch the end, just to make sure it's OK.

I am not a British isolationist. I don't just want a better deal for Britain. I want a better deal for Europe too.

People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent.

The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc. We must not be weighed down by an insistence on a one size fits all approach which implies that all countries want the same level of integration. The fact is that they don't and we shouldn't assert that they do.

Britain is not in the single currency, and we're not going to be. But we all need the eurozone to have the right governance and structures to secure a successful currency for the long term.

I want completing the single market to be our driving mission. I want us to be at the forefront of transformative trade deals with the US, Japan and India as part of the drive towards global free trade. And I want us to be pushing to exempt Europe's smallest entrepreneurial companies from more EU directives.

Countries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonise everything.

There is not, in my view, a single European demos.

Our participation in the single market, and our ability to help set its rules is the principal reason for our membership of the EU. So it is a vital interest for us to protect the integrity and fairness of the single market for all its members.

People feel that the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to. They resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation. And they wonder what the point of it all is. Put simply, many ask 'why can't we just have what we voted to join - a common market?'

I believe something very deeply. That Britain's national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union and that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.

You have to be ready for anything. It's a good reminder about democracy. Voters can tell you to carry on, or chuck you out. You've got to be ready for both.

You don't have to be a brilliant historian to know that in Europe, messing with countries' borders, messing with their self-determination, their ability to choose their own futures, this is extremely dangerous, and that's why I think it is important to stand up to Putin.

If you lose control of your debt and deficit, you get massive cuts in things such as health and education. You get appalling insecurity, jobs lost, firms going overseas.

I am a very instinctive Conservative. I have created a welfare system where it pays to work. I have created independent schools within the state sector bringing excellence to children wherever they are.

I'm a classic Church of England member, but part of its strength is the fact that it doesn't ask us to sign up to too much of a canon... but I've always found the teachings of Jesus and the Bible quite useful as a sort of handy guide.

It is so important for European countries, post-Second World War, to prove that they can be successful multiethnic and multiracial democracies. I think we in Britain have had great success in avoiding the hatreds and prejudices of the past.

I would be heartbroken if I ever thought that people in the Jewish community thought that Britain was no longer a safe place for them.

I have a very clear view, which is that if you disagree with the policies of Israel, fine, say so, but that is never a reason to take that out on Jewish communities.

It's everyone's dread to lose a child. You lose someone you love so much, so young. It does hit you like nothing else, and there is a bit of you that thinks, well, if you can face that sort of challenge in your life, then it puts everything else into perspective.

I went to a very posh school, I had a very privileged upbringing with parents who were incredibly loving and brilliant. I've never tried to hide that; I'm not going to change my accent or talk in a different way.

For me, there is no greater sunshine in politics or in life than to have a job, security for your family, a good school place where you know your child is going, and the sense that if I put in, there will be a decent, secure retirement at the end of it all.

Before people break the law, they need strong families - adult authority figures and the love of the family. When they step over the line, I'm a Tory. I believe in tough responses, in the law coming down on people like a ton of bricks.

I love cooking; it's a very good way to get your mind off things.

I will do everything I can in future to help this great country succeed.

I think the country requires fresh leadership. I do not think I can be the captain to take the country to its next destination.

We are the reformers. Reform ends if we leave, not just for us but also our friends in Europe who want our voice heard in Europe.

I think us leaving would have an enormous and bad effect on the rest of the EU. The EU would respond by deepening integration and becoming more of a 'political project'. It would not only be damaging ourselves but also the kind of Europe we want.