"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."