Quote Unquote

The urgent question of our age is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy . . . There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America - President Bill Clinton in his inaugural address

When you sleep with the next king of England, you go into a rather different stratosphere - Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of the 'Sun', to the National Heritage Committee, when it was argued that Camilla Parker Bowles was a private citizen

There is a big chance the monarchy is going to be laughed into oblivion rather than abolished - Tony Banks, Labour MP

Iraq is not an enemy to America and does not want to be - Abduljabbar Muhsen, Saddam Hussein's press secretary, in an open letter to Bill Clinton

The allied response to the tyrant Saddam Hussein's threat to Western interests has always been disproportionate - disproportionately soppy - Sir Bernard Ingham

Special preference is being given to complete works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, which, because of their hard covers, burn longer and give off more warmth - Snark news agency report that Armenians are burning books because of fuel shortages

There is some sort of means form that asks you basically if you are unemployed. I just filled that in - Gerald Ratner after a magistrates' clerk calculated that he had weekly disposable income of pounds 20

The British like a maverick. They like an amateur and an eccentric. In no other country could I have been so successful - Nico Ladenis, leading chef

We want to have the message of God on the TV screen between the ads for beans and washing powder - the Rev Robert Ellis, communications officer for Lichfield diocese, on a series of commercials promoting the Church of England

Tell Brussels to get stuffed - undoubtedly the best working definition of subsidiarity yet devised - Lord Carter, Labour peer