Once you're labeled as mentally ill, and that's in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artefact of your mental illness.

We have a number of very powerful women in the world now - Mrs. [Angela] Merkel, who the Germans call Mutti. What did we call Mrs. [Margaret] Thatcher? When she was minister of education, she stopped the children's free school milk. This may sound quaint, but after the war we were such a malnourished nation that part of the founding of the welfare state were public health initiatives. Every little schoolchild got milk. Mrs. Thatcher stopped it. They called her "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher."

God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.

Feminism hasn't failed, it's just never been tried.

I can't think of any male politician who magnetizes love and hate - mainly hate - the way [Margaret Thatcher] did.

You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.

It was a very funny conference. I knew [Christopher Hitchens] before that. He had always been a good angel to me. He once stole a phrase from me that came out of his mouth on television. I saw his eyes move sideways. I thought, It's alright, you can have it! The conference was light on women. Salman Rushdie showed up, they were doing their own thing. I didn't feel neglected!