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I am actually jealous of people who achieve sartorial composure at all times. But I am quite unable to dress neatly, let alone elegantly - Peter Snow, `Newsnight' presenter

There are very few young men who didn't start off with an older woman. It's a very good thing, and a wife can only benefit from it - Katie Boyle, on the young John Major's romance with a woman 13 years his senior

I have been to Angola and Afghanistan and those were like child's play compared to Grozny. Here, it's like a slaughterhouse - Russian lieutenant colonel

They are sustained by a calculated campaign against Europe, a resurgence of the far right who talk of sovereignty as if it were virginity - Julian Critchley, Tory MP, on the whipless Conservative Euro-rebels

When people speak of social justice, I reach for my wallet. Everybody, I have painfully discovered, finds it easy to be charitable with my money, and to claim the credit for dispensing it in the bargain - Sir Bernard Ingham, former press secretary to Margaret Thatcher

Britain is in danger of becoming a nation of unskilled cooks and over-reliant on convenience food - Ian Mitchell, chairman of the apple producers' association, the Bramley Campaign Group

Nobody would ever say: "Inside Nicholas Soames there is a thin man trying to get out." There isn't - Nicholas Soames, defence minister

Building sites remain eerily silent as you swing past. It's almost as if you've become invisible to the roving male eye - Deirdre Vine, editor of `Woman's Journal', on being 40