Quotes of the Week

Women are better novelists. Men write novels because of egotism: they are more confident about their place in the world.

Rachel Cusk, winner of Whitbread first novel award

I think he would have to work very hard to prove that one.

Norman Stone, professor of modern history, Oxford University, on Michael Howard's theory that rising crime can be traced back to children deprived of fathers away fighting in the Second World War

She's the sexiest thing ever to come out of the Palace.

Sylvester Stallone after lunch with the Princess of Wales

What's the point of going from Lancashire to somewhere else damp and dreary.

Ursula Greenaway, travel consultant, on why she won't be selling EuroDisney holidays

It hurt a lot.

John Wayne Bobbit to a court in Manassas, Virginia, on what it felt like to have his penis cut off by his wife, Lorena

Owing to an editing error, Hugo Young's column yesterday described Michael Portillo as 'a conman of a different order of seriousness and coherence from any of his rivals'. What Hugo Young wrote was that Portillo is 'in command of a different order of seriousness'. We apologise to both.

Apology in the 'Guardian'