Quote Unquote

If our troops acted irresponsibly, they would have killed many people. They acted with utmost restraint - Oupa Gqozo, Ciskei's military leader

I was by no means a pious kid. I was almost thrown out for reading Lady Chatterley's Lover during benediction - Father Timothy Radcliffe, the new Master of the Dominican Order, describing his schooldays at Downside

I cannot deny there was a greed aspect to it at first, but I regret it now - it was not as if I needed the money - Cyril Reenan, retired bank manager who recorded the alleged telephone conversation between the Princess of Wales and James Gilbey

If you have been around a very long time, people tend to think you are rather grand and you only get grand offers - that's a desperate limitation - Diana Rigg

The aristocracy in Britain is so randomly chosen. You can be as thick as a plank and still be a duke - P J O'Rourke, American author

The refuse collector in Grimsby does not wake up in the middle of the night sweating over whether sterling will go into the narrow band of the ERM - Bill Morris, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, on TUC reform

So myopic are our politicians that they can barely bring themselves to debate the economy, let alone manage it - Sir John Clark, former chairman of GEC-Plessey

John Major was daft not to get rid of him. Mr David Mellor, the amorous prawn, won't go away - Sir Bernard Ingham

Clothing does not need to be overt to be sensual. A flash of flesh through a side split is eminently more interesting - Jasper Conran

National parkland is no place for a land-hungry sport with little red flags that manicure and suburbanise the landscape - Mike Harding, objecting to the building of a golf course inside the Yorkshire National Park