QUOTE UNQUOTE

Most MPs are slack and incompetent, if not actually venal, in their operation of the procedure for parliamentary questions - Alan Clark, former Tory minister

I did a picture in England one winter, and it was so cold I almost got married - Shelley Winters

When seagulls follow a trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea - Eric Cantona, at a press conference following his successful appeal against a jail sentence

You can go from feeling sexually nubile to monstrous in a year. The sudden awareness of death is very ageing - Martin Amis, novelist

And who are you? Are you an actress? - Joan Rivers, American chat- show hostess, to Liz Hurley at the Oscar awards ceremony

Why wear evening dress at all if you are going to deconstruct it? Why not just put on a big pink furry rabbit suit? - Richard Jobson, film critic, on the disappearance of traditional formal wear at the Oscars ceremony

The price is too high. I've spent 20 years in prison. I lost 10 years of my son's childhood, and I haven't got any money - Bruce Reynolds, Great Train Robber, on the fruits of his criminal activities

The traditions built up over generations can easily be destroyed in the twinkling of an eye - the Prince of Wales

A society which treasures the elderly and disabled and looks after them is a generous society. Once this stops, life becomes cheap - Cardinal Basil Hume