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Someone said to me, 'If you are a popular Chancellor of the Exchequer, you are not doing your job properly'. I sometimes think that if this is true, I must be the most successful Chancellor there has ever been - Norman Lamont

There is a very fine line between talking up the economy and telling a lie - Rodney Bickerstaffe, leader of Nupe, the public employees' union

If a private company had put forward a prospectus and had spoken about that prospectus in the way the Government spoke about their manifesto at the election and then produced this Budget, they would have been called fraudsters and hucksters - Derek Enright, Labour MP

It is not so much the Government shooting itself in the foot as shooting other people in the back - Harriet Harman, Labour's Treasury minister, on the Budget

Life at the top of British politics is a pretty joyless business right now - David Mellor

I hate the idea of death. I have a zest for living which I would hate to see stopped - Sir Peter Hall, theatre director

I, along with the critics, have never taken myself very seriously - Elizabeth Taylor on her acting

We now believe that the decision to employ John Birt other than as a staff member was a mistake and we deeply regret the dismay it has caused to the public and BBC staff - BBC governors, who also expressed 'full support' for the director-general

I'm tired of carrying the can for all of them. I've been the scapegoat of the Waleses for the past four years - the Duchess of York

People who love stories love film and video just as they love books. They are all forms of fiction - Fay Weldon, speaking in defence of videos