There's no point in worrying about things you can't influence.
I don't think that people are disinterested or uninterested in politics. I think very often they are disengaged from the formal political process. To some extent they are suspicious or even despairing of formal politics as a means to give expression and effect to what they want.
Fairness is not about statistical equality.
Even youngish men can acquire wisdom as time goes by.
There is no denying or hiding the fact that over the years I moved from well on the right of the Conservative Party, much much more to its left, and therefore to the centre of the poltical spectrum.
There are people who are just very, very sniffy and snobby and have always sort of looked down their noses at me.
I said that if I hadn't been a politician, I'd have liked to be a barrister, or an academic. My beloved wife said: 'You'd be a very good barrister and a hopeless academic.' I said 'Why?' She said: 'Because you're not an original thinker.'
I'm not in the business of warning people.
I am seeking every day to restore faith in Parliament - to ensure we have a House of Commons which is representative, effective and reconnected to the people we serve.
The Conservatives must realise that being sceptical is different from being phobic in what is an interdependent world.
If someone is being very cheeky, it can be quite fun to deal with that situation.
It's a cowardly form of politics to use my spouse to beat me.
I do strongly believe myself that members of the government who sit in the House of Lords should be accountable to the elected House because otherwise there is a democratic deficit, and that is wrong.
I think the record shows that as Speaker, I have taken the lead in cleaning up politics.
I'm not psychic. I cannot know what is in the mind of particular public figures.
A legislature cannot be effective while suffering from public scorn.
I've never been much given to little social cliques.
Possibly the fact that I was physically quite feeble, a relatively short little fellow, attracted me to that idea of a very authoritative and aggressive version of Conservative politics.
I don't want to crawl over the entrails of past disputes.
I never aspired to be Speaker simply so I could say, 'I am the Speaker of the House of Commons,' and tell my children that.
