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The Prime Minister has really got the Parliamentary party by the goolies. Either we have a general election, we are told, or have to vote for this ghastly Maastricht treaty - Teresa Gorman, rebel Conservative MP, before yesterday's vote of confidence in the Government

Other things have gone on, you know. Politics isn't the only thing in life - Neil Kinnock on his life since defeat in the general election

I say a prayer and God gives me a plot. He's a lot cleverer than we are - Barbara Cartland, about to start writing her 577th novel

We have a culture of instant gratification, like fast food. If you don't like it immediately, you blame the artists - John Drummond, director of the Proms

One thing I have learnt in a long life misspent in politics is that I cannot see ahead - Enoch Powell

Looking for the benefits of performance-related pay is like looking for the Holy Grail - John Burrow, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers

I don't believe the job of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the equivalent of a chair of economics in a university - Kenneth Clarke, insisting that his lack of an economics training was no handicap

You shouldn't be takin' nuthin' from your homeboys - the Eighth Commandment in Black Bible Chronicles, a best-selling American rap version of the Bible

Permanent happiness is not a normal human condition - Professor Ian Hindmarch, head of human psychopharmacology at Surrey University

It's just nature doing its own thing - Donald Vermeer, an American professor of geography, of the Mississippi floods