In 1904, 20 per cent of journeys were made by bicycle in London. I want to see a figure like that again. If you can't turn the clock back to 1904, what's the point of being a Conservative?
Boris JohnsonHumanity would have plunged into a new dark age of absolutely frightening and appalling characteristics without Churchill.
Boris JohnsonIt is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.
Boris JohnsonChurchill decides from very early on that he will create a political position that is somehow above left and right, embodying the best points of both sides and thereby incarnating the will of the nation. He thinks of himself as a gigantic keystone in the arch, with all the lesser stones logically induced to support his position. He has a kind of semi-ideology to go with it - a leftish Toryism: imperialist, romantic, but on the side of the working man.
Boris JohnsonYou know, sometimes I don't understand what's wrong with us. This is just about the most creative and imaginative country on earth—and yet sometimes we just don't seem to have the gumption to exploit our intellectual property. We split the atom, and now we have to get French or Korean scientists to help us build nuclear power stations. We perfected the finest cars on earth—and now Rolls-Royce is in the hands of the Germans. Whatever we invent, from the jet engine to the internet, we find that someone else carts it off and makes a killing from it elsewhere.
Boris JohnsonThe mayors fund for London will be a streamlined vehicle for getting money from the wealth creating sector to communities across London that are facing hardship and deprivation and are the victims of crime.
Boris JohnsonBut if people want to swim in the Thames, if they want to take their lives into their own hands, then they should be able to do so with all the freedom and exhilaration of our woad-painted ancestors.
Boris JohnsonI think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed so it didn't go up my nose. In fact, it may have been icing sugar.
Boris JohnsonMy point is that this Potter business has legs. It will run and run, and we must be utterly mad, as a country, to leave it to the Americans to make money from a great British invention. I appeal to the children of this country and to their Potter-fiend parents to write to Warner Bros and Universal, and perhaps, even, to the great J K herself. Bring Harry home to Britain-and if you want a site with less rainfall than Rome, with excellent public transport, and strong connections to Harry Potter, I have just the place.
Boris JohnsonYes, cannabis is dangerous, but no more than other perfectly legal drugs. It's time for a rethink, and the Tory party - the funkiest, most jiving party on Earth - is where it's happening.
Boris JohnsonI think it's absolutely amazing and how the Remain side have the cheek to come and tell us that we improve our security by staying in this organisation I do not understand.
Boris JohnsonThe crucial thing is to look in an informed way at what's going on. Look at the way in which we are forced by our imbalanced system to push away people who might contribute mightily to the NHS.
Boris JohnsonAll the people I talk to, increasingly, can see that the emperor has got no clothes. The case for leaving [the EU] is now overwhelming.
Boris JohnsonI think it is going to be wonderful. I went to the Paralympics in Beijing and have seen how brilliant the sport is at first hand. People are going to love it. It is going to change people's attitudes to Paralympians and it is going to be a great show.
Boris JohnsonLondon is the sporting capital of the world. I say to the Chinese and I say to the world, ping pong is coming home.
Boris JohnsonCan I say anything good about Ken Livingstone? A long time ago he did some good things, but I can't now remember what any of them were.
Boris JohnsonDavid Lloyd George had been to Germany, and been so dazzled by the Führer that he compared him to George Washington. Hitler was a 'born leader', declared the befuddled former British Prime Minister. He wished that Britain had 'a man of his supreme quality at the head of affairs in our country today'. This from the hero of the First World War! The man who had led Britain to victory over the Kaiser!
Boris JohnsonI dont see why people are so snooty about Channel Five. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap-dancing, and other related and vital subjects
Boris JohnsonThe only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.
Boris JohnsonIf gay marriage was OK ... then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog.
Boris JohnsonI'm afraid Sadiq Khan is completely wrong. The European Court of Justice is the supreme legal authority in our country.
Boris JohnsonSo I'm definitely in favour of stimulating the dynamic wealth creation sectors of the economy.
Boris JohnsonThe dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP, they have run out of better ideas.
Boris JohnsonWe celebrate the contribution of people who have come to this country to make it better.
Boris JohnsonDo you seriously propose that they are going to be so insane as to allow tariffs to be imposed. The EU is, I'm afraid a job destroying engine. You can see it all across southern Europe, you can see it, alas, in our country.
Boris JohnsonI don't believe that economic equality is possible; indeed some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy and keeping up with the Joneses that is, like greed, a valuable spur to economic activity.
Boris JohnsonHe is the resounding human rebuttal to all Marxist historians who think history is the story of vast and impersonal economic forces. The point of the Churchill Factor is that one man can make all the difference.
Boris JohnsonSome people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.
Boris JohnsonMy friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.
Boris JohnsonI have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.
Boris JohnsonWe need to remember that we can't compete endlessly with other nations that set their income taxes substantially lower than ours. They will attract jobs, and investment. They may generate more tax - and they may even persuade their tennis champs to run that extra half yard
Boris JohnsonI want to offer particular congratulations to Andrea Leadsom on her stunning achievement. She is now well placed to win and replace the absurd gloom in some quarters with a positive, confident and optimistic approach, not just to Europe, but to government all round.
Boris JohnsonThese days we dimly believe that the Second World War was won with Russian blood and American money; and though that is in some ways true, it is also true that, without Churchill, Hitler would almost certainly have won.
Boris JohnsonI want you to know that I have nothing against Orlando, though you are, of course, far more likely to get shot or robbed there than in London.
Boris Johnson