"In 2005 we have a once in a generation opportunity to deliver a modern Marshall plan for the developing world."

"Our equality bill is specifically designed to protect religion and belief on exactly the same terms as race or gender or sexuality."

"We cannot compromise with the earth; we cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change, so we must compromise with one another."

"I find it quite unusual for people to criticise me for doing what I consider to be my duty."

"You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on, and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken."

"If people are persuaded of the need for education and the need to invest in education, they're also persuaded of the need not to waste that investment by having low-quality education but to have high-quality education."

"We spend more on cows than the poor."

"The NHS cannot be privatised if that's not the will of the Scottish people, and the Scottish health service will have the funding that's necessary if that's also the will of the Scottish people."

"We should demonstrate that in war, under Churchill and Lloyd George, and in peace, Britain always was, already is, and can continue to be a leader."

"I once wrote a book on courage and what made people courageous. I found it was a strength of belief matched by a strength of willpower."

"Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power."

"Sidney Poitier was directing a film called 'Hanky Panky.' And he said, 'Do you want to come with me to New York to see Gilda Radner in 'Lunch Hour' on Broadway? I said, 'I don't need to see her, I love her. I've wanted to write something for her for a long time. So it's OK by me.'"

"I love the art of acting, and I love film, because you always have another chance if you want it. You know, if we - if this isn't going well, you can't say - well, you could say - let's stop. Let's start over again, Gene, because you were too nervous."

"My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character."

"Success is a terrible thing and a wonderful thing. If you can enjoy it, it's wonderful. If it starts eating away at you, and they're waiting for more from me, or what can I do to top this, then you're in trouble. Just do what you love. That's all I want to do."

"Whatever simplicity I've achieved in writing, I think I owe most of it to Jean Renoir and Hemingway: simple, declarative sentences. I've read some very good writers, but the sentences were so long that I've forgotten what the point was."

"My mother was suffering every day of her life, and what right did I have to be happy if she was suffering? So whenever I got happy about something, I felt the need to cut it off, and the only way to cut it off was to pray. 'Forgive me Lord.' For what, I didn't know."

"I never thought of it as God. I didn't know what to call it. I don't believe in devils, but demons I do because everyone at one time or another has some kind of a demon, even if you call it by another name, that drives them."

"I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while."

"I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track."

"I had a unique form: a Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma."

"I'm going to tell you what my religion is. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Period. Terminato. Finito."

"What I learned from Mel Brooks was audacity - in performance as in life. Maybe you go too far, but try it."

"Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do - sing, dance, joke about - then they take that as love."