"Growing up, I was fascinated with Buck Rogers' airplanes. As I began to mature in World War II, it became jets and rocket planes. But it was always in the air."

"I do celebrity ski races all over the world."

"You are not going to change the minds of people who are looking for attention."

"Like actors and writers who are on and off again in terms of employment, I had a very unstructured life."

"You can never tell when a commercial space venture will suddenly become viable."

"We can find our voice in the world again: a voice that is commensurate with the fifth-biggest economy on Earth."

"Obama's extraordinary political skills suggest he is more than capable of rising above any personal historical grudges he may have inherited."

"London is—after Athens and Rome—the third most influential city in history."

"We cannot turn our backs on Europe. We are part of Europe."

"I have more in common with a three-toed sloth or a one-eyed pterodactyl or a Kalamata olive than I have with Winston Churchill."

"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."

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

"My speaking style was criticised by no less an authority than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a low moment, my friends, to have my rhetorical skills denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg."

"I do think human beings cannot be faulted for wishing to judge themselves and their lives and their achievements by others around them; that is a natural human feeling."

"I want London to be the most cycle-friendly city on Earth, and I want more people to be happy and safe on bicycles."

"The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest; and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two."

"It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time. But in the end you have a great sense of personal dissatisfaction."

"Sometimes I can think of so many ways of expressing myself that I feel I'm an old typewriter, and too many keys come forward at once - and I get jammed."

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

"It's not reasonable for companies that have chief executives and board members who are paid very considerable sums to subsidise low pay through in-work benefits."

"I promised to run the most open and transparent administration in Britain. That is why, with this brutally honest and unprecedented progress report, I am determined to level with Londoners."

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

"There are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."

"I want you to know that I have nothing against Orlando, though you are, of course, far more likely to get shot or robbed there than in London."