If something can be proven to work, we should try it... Making sure that our young folk get the best education is the only thing that matters to me, and if something can be shown to work in doing that or if something's worth trying to do that, then I'll certainly be in the market for it.

I like Indian takeaway.

I am quite driven. I know what I think, and I know what I want to achieve, but I also hope that people who are asked to describe me would describe me as pretty down-to-earth, loyal, friendly. The more experience I have got in politics, I think the more I have allowed me to shine through.

It would be a very serious mistake for the U.K. to vote to leave the European Union, and I think it would be democratically indefensible for Scotland, if we had voted to stay in, to face the prospect of being taken out.

If there is a 'Leave' vote in England and across the U.K. as a whole, then we see the reins of power being seized by politicians who are on the right of the Conservative party.

I desperately want Scotland to be an independent country. I cannot, though, sit here and tell you definitively that it will happen, and that it will happen on this timescale, because I have to respect the opinion of the people of Scotland.

I think the first decision I took when I became a government minister was to reverse the planned closure of Monklands Accident and Emergency. It's an issue close to my heart.

A whole range of things are done to ensure services remain safe and sustainable because that is the absolute paramount duty of the health board.

I think Scotland will become an independent country. I've always believed that. It means that if I'm right on that, there has to be another referendum at some stage. But the timing and circumstances of that will require careful judgment.

Is it not typical that we have a Tory Government that wants, just like its pals in the Labour Party, constantly to talk down Scotland's prospects?

This government and the party that I lead will continue to argue an alternative to the Tory-Labour austerity.

It is clear that my predecessor as First Minister is frightening the life out of the Tories and the Labour Party. Long may it continue.

Would I love to think that one day I would be First Minister of an independent Scotland? Of course.

I have said repeatedly I do want to take longer to eliminate the deficit than the other parties. Because I want to see us have the ability to invest more in our economy, in our public services, and in lifting people out of poverty.

Scottish politics, U.K. politics, is not really like American politics in this respect. Not everybody is absolutely obsessed with image. I'm not saying the United States is obsessed with image.

I've not had a deliberate image makeover.

I wish we lived in a world where how you looked or what you wore wasn't an issue for men or women, and it's by and large not an issue for men, so I wish it wasn't an issue for women, but it is.

Literally every time I'm on camera, as well as there being commentary on what I've said, there'll be commentary on what my hair looked like, what I wear. Often it's written in the most hideous and quite cruel way.

I am quite a shy person. You say that to people, and they say, 'You do interviews, speeches. How can you be shy?' But, fundamentally, I am.

I'm not going to do anything that sees a Tory government be likely.

We've chosen to stay part of the Westminster system, but we don't want to be a forgotten, sidelined part of it.

The SNP became a minority government in 2007, then a majority one in 2011. But Labour viewed what was happening as some kind of aberration. They felt the problem wasn't theirs: they didn't have to change; the Scottish people had just gone down this wrong road, and if they waited long enough, they would find their way back.

I take responsibility for everything that happens in the SNP as leader.

Scotland never voted for Margaret Thatcher.

I know you've got to earn people's trust, and you've got to earn it day after day after day.

I feel comfortable in a position of leadership, but that's not to say I feel complacent about it. I take it incredibly seriously.

At these big set-piece events like the leaders' debates, that exterior of calm and serenity is nothing compared to what's going on inside most of the time.

I love talking to the public, I love hearing what people have got to say.

I've had particularly unpleasant stuff, and it has been reported that I've had death threats. Twitter and Facebook give people who have always been out there a platform from which to hurl abuse, and all I can do is try to block it out and remind myself that tweets are transient and get lost in the ether after a few moments.

I'm the leader of the SNP. I think you would expect me to say I would vote SNP in whatever constituency I lived in.

Many people from many different walks of life have marriages that break up, and those are deeply personal, deeply painful but ultimately private matters.

I feel sorry for generations of Labour voters and supporters who must look and wonder what on earth has gone wrong and what Labour is for.

I'm manifestly not the same as Alex Salmond. I'm a different gender, for example... I'm being flippant, but maybe this is a partly gender-driven difference: I'm very keen that we find a way of reaching out across party divides to find things we agree on, as well as the things we disagree on.

I'm not making any secret of the fact I still believe in independence. We'll continue to argue the case.

Our MPs will take decisions on how they're voting on a day-to-day basis. But I'm the leader of the party, and in terms of our overall strategy and how we vote on key issues, then ultimately, those decisions will be mine.

Our opposition to Trident is very clear, very firm, very long-standing, very principled, and we would seek to build an alliance to prevent the renewal of Trident.

I admire Obama.

I think the Tories are doing - and are intent on doing - damage to things I hold dear.

I want there to be another independence referendum at some stage. I want Scotland to be independent, but I wouldn't choose to have it happen because England votes to come out of the E.U.

Maybe its time for politicians to fight back a little bit in terms of this notion that politicians are all in it for themselves, we're all the same, we're not driven by sincere motives. Because the fact of the matter is the vast majority are.

Most politicians come into politics because they want to make a difference; we just have different ideas how to do it.

We will never vote for the renewal of Trident; that's a decision which will fall to be made in the next Westminster parliament. We will never vote for that.

I don't know Ed Miliband as a person particularly well.

Tory governments are bad for Scotland.

I don't feel we need to be independent for me to feel confident in my Scottish identity. I think Scotland is pretty comfortable in its identity. We won't need independence to preserve it... if we don't become independent, it won't disappear; it isn't under existential threat.

Don't worry about fitting in - it's completely over-rated.

It's satisfying to watch a story where you feel like you're a fly on the wall.

My dad always jokes that if I ever write an autobiography, which I'm not going to, it'll be called 'It's Tough in the Middle.'

I live in dread that I might find myself in some sort of emergency, and everyone will turn to me and expect me to know what the correct procedures are.

Before I had my son, I became obsessed by this painting I'd seen in an art gallery. It was a lot of money, but I felt such a rush of adrenaline when I wrote the cheque to buy it. I thought I was going to gaze lovingly at it forever, but after just two weeks, I realised I didn't really like it any more.