The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don't.

At eighty things do not occur; they recur.

[talking about the Holocaust] 'But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.' 'But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be... even on the Holocaust.

Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.

All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.

I dont know whether you've ever looked into a miner's eyes for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you've ever seen. I think perhaps that's why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.