"Fashion—a word which knaves and fools may use, Their knavery and folly to excuse. To copy beauties, forfeits all pretence To fame—to copy faults, is want of sense."

"So much they talked, so very little said."

"Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone; Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own."

"He sickened at all triumphs but his own."

"Men the most infamous are fond of fame, And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame."

"Genius is of no country; her pure ray Spreads all abroad, as general as the day."

"When foes insult, and prudent friends dispense, In pity's strains, the worst of insolence, Oft with thee, Lloyd, I steal an hour from grief, And in thy social converse find relief."

"He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone."

"And adepts in the speaking trade Keep a cough by them ready made."

"Who to patch up his fame, or fill his purse, Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse; Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known, Defacing first, then claiming for his own."

"Just to the windward of the law."

"Shall I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman’s fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care, ’Cause another’s rosy are? Be she fairer than the day, Or the flowery meads in May, If she be not so to me, What care I how fair she be?"

"Jack shall pipe and Gill shall dance."

"Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat, And therefore let ’s be merry."

"Though I am young, I scorn to flit On the wings of borrowed wit."

"And I oft have heard defended,— Little said is soonest mended."

"And he that gives us in these days New Lords may give us new laws."

"I loved a lass, a fair one, As fair as e'er was seen; She was indeed a rare one, Another Sheba queen: But, fool as then I was, I thought she loved me too: But now, alas! she's left me, Falero, lero, loo!"

"In Britain we have a free press. It's not a pretty press, but it's free. The people who can't bear the Daily Mail, they say: 'you should ban it'. No no, no no, you don't ban it... you don't buy it.""

"So no, I'm not in that camp, but I do think that statutory regulation is not required, and most of the heinous crimes that came up and have made such a splash in front of this Inquiry have already been illegal. Contempt of court is illegal. Phone tapping is illegal. Taking money from - policemen taking money is illegal. All of these things don't need a code. We already have laws for them. The fact that these laws were not rigorously enforced is, again, due to the behaviour of the police, the interaction of the police and News International, and - I mean, let's be honest about this - the fact that our politicians have been very, very involved, in ways that I think are not sensible, with senior News International people, and I hope you'll be calling the Prime Minister and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to explain how that comes down from the top.""

"I do have a residual belief that, if at all possible, you should try not to mock the weak."

"The trouble about working on a tabloid is that they tend to be run by bullies."

"For fifty years Private Eye has pretty much in most issues exposed a miscarriage of justice, and a lot of them have been murders. Over the years, large numbers of these cases have been found to be entirely wrong, and the men convicted -- almost always men, there was a couple of women -- have been found innocent, so we would have killed those people, and in some of those very high profile cases which involved terrorism cases, we would have made very dangerous new martyrs by executing people who turned out not to have committed the murders involved. So on a purely practical basis, whatever you think it says about the civilised nature of your society or not, I think it would be incredibly dangerous to have capital punishment back."

"Boris Johnson, people always ask me the same question, they say, 'Is Boris a very very clever man pretending to be an idiot?' And I always say, 'No.'"

"If this is justice, I am a banana."

"Johnson says, most judiciously, that the grand merit [of Cecilia] is in the general Power of the whole."

"It is clear enough, however, that the work of Miss Burney, the mother of English fiction, was not inspired by any single wish to redress a grievance: the richness of the human scene as Dr Burney's daughter had the chance of observing it provided a sufficient stimulus."

"It's writ by somebody that knows the top and the bottom, the highest and lowest of mankind—It's very good language, and there's an infinite deal of fun in it."

"Doctor Johnson returned home last night full of the praises of the book [Evelina] I had lent him; protesting there were passages in it that might do honour to Richardson. We talk of it for ever; and he, Doctor Johnson, feels ardent after the denouement. He could not get rid of the Rogue! he said. I then lent him the second volume, which he instantly read; and he is, even now, busy with the third... Sir Joshua Reynolds had been fed while reading the little work, from refusing to quit it at table! and that Edmund Burke had sat up a whole night to finish it!!!"

"Henry Fielding, too, would have been afraid of her: there is nothing so delicately finished in all of Harry Fieldings works as Evelina."

"I am too inexperienced and ignorant to conduct myself with propriety in this town, where every thing is new to me, and many things are unaccountable and perplexing."

"To despise riches may, indeed, be philosophic; but to dispense them worthily must, surely, be more beneficial to mankind."

"'No, Madam,' cried I, '—only—only I did not know that gentleman,—and so,—and so I thought—I intended—I—' Overpowered by all that had passed, I had not strength to make my mortifying explanation; — my spirits quite failed me, and I burst into tears."

"he said, 'Madam—may I presume?'—and stopped, offering to take my hand. I...could scarce forbear laughing. 'Allow me, Madam,' continuing he, affectedly breaking off every half moment, 'the honour and happiness...the happiness and honor...'"

"Tired, ashamed, and mortified, I begged to sit down till we returned home, which I did soon after. Lord Orville did me the honour to hand me to the coach, talking all the way of the honour I had done him! O these fashionable people!"

"A private ball this was called...but Lord! my dear Sir, I believe I saw half the world!"

"Remember, my dear Evelina, nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things."

"A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment."

"it has been long and justly remarked, that folly has ever sought alliance with beauty."

"Money is the source of the greatest vice, & that Nation which is most rich, is most wicked."