"The role of art is to give food for thought,to act as a stimulant,to entice the onlooker to inspect things, people,emotions,from a new point of view."

"It seems to me that art is a great miracle-it is the showing forth of the Holy Spirit transubstantiation. It is to find and proclaim the poetry of life, without which there is no life."

"It is the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS (Short Message Service) vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago.They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped."

"Praying is another way of singing. You plant in the tree the soul of lemons. You plant in the gardens the spirit of roses."

"I know the colour rose, and it is lovely, But not when it ripens in a tumour."

"Are all men in disguise except those crying?"

"And silence matched the silence under snow."

"You sod, Leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone"

"My family wasn't troubled by much dysfunction. The most hotly contested issue was probably 'Who is going to have the most peas?'. Consequently, I haven't got much time for angst. Anything that happens to you is your own responsibility."

"For me real peace is lying on a river bank in summer with a sprig of grass in my mouth. I have friends who jet off to a luxury hotel. I think, 'How can you enjoy such ghastly luxury?'"

"We need a corrective on who is a genuine artist. I'm an opportunist. I have no talent. That's true of 99 per cent of people in the British media. Ricky Gervais or Graham and Arthur who wrote Father Ted or Armando Iannucci are God-like as they have talent. Everyone else is a drone."

"Mel and I genuinely get on. It's like another marriage. He is very straightforward and never loses his rag. I run around in a frenzy most of the time. London cabbies will say to me, 'Your mate Mel's a miserable bastard', but he's far more grounded than me."

"Now, Piers Morgan is a bit of a ****."

"To say it is a dog's breakfast is an insult to the pet food industry."

"I also say to all of you listening in the Chamber and outside that I feel very proud to be slipping the captain’s armband onto my shirt sleeve again today. That is why, in all humility, I ask for your assistance as we seek to do our duty here. I say to this Assembly and to the people that I am not the boss – they, the people, are the boss."

"I think that Elin Jones made the point that that £450 million could have gone on health or anything else, but obviously the issue is that if you had another £450 million from somewhere else, you have got another £450 million, but what does that tell you? That is like saying, if my aunty was a bloke, she would be my uncle."

"Therefore, the only thing that is not up for grabs is no change. It is fair to say that it is all to play for, except in ruling out no change."

"Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?"