Louise Mensch Quotes

I was educated privately for free because I was a scholarship girl, 100% scholarship girl. I got it on my own merits. I would never dispute that I am a privileged person. Nevertheless, when I started work I made 11 grand a year. I got my book deal on my own, my father didn't write those books for me, I did all of that entirely on my own. I stood for parliament with the amazing support and help of my ex-husband, but it's not something that was handed to me like a peerage. I worked hard and was elected. So my achievements, such as they are, are my own.

I'm not embarrassed about the novels I wrote when I was younger, but I couldn't write them today because of my religion.

We'd all survive if Twitter shut down for a short while during major riots. Social media isn't any more important than a train station, a road or a bus service. We don't worry about police temporarily closing those. Common sense. If riot info and fear is spreading by Facebook and Twitter, shut them off for an hour or two, then restore.

I like my men to be manly, as you'll see from my books.

Of course women can have it all - if they want it all. I won't hear any defeatist talk. If you just dwell on problems, you won't get anywhere fast.

Money gives you the power to do whatever you want to do. I like the idea of being in complete control of my life.

Your moral stance depends on what you think is being aborted. If you don't believe it to be a person but part of a woman's body, of course you will be pro-choice. I would be virulently pro-choice if I didn't believe it to be a person.

'Kane and Abel' is the best popular fiction of all time. As a kid, I wanted to be prime minister when I read 'First Among Equals.'

What I enjoy doing is challenging stereotypes of what people believe a Tory must be. You don't have to say every Tory is in it for themselves - it's pathetic caricaturing that has no place in the 21st century, and if we can challenge that stereotype, then great.

I fundamentally believe that politics is counterintuitive. The left think they're helping working people by providing more rights, but all that actually happens is you create poverty and despair, because jobs go to your competitors who have fewer rights for workers.

I want to retire very early, by the time I am 40, and go to live in Italy.

The nature of the internet is that you don't know who is behind the screen.

Are you trivialising the sisterhood if you dye your hair or have your eyebrows threaded? I'd say the answer to that is no. But equally, it's a perfectly valid feminist thing to say there is a certain amount of attention on a woman's appearance, and I don't wish that to be the focus or a distraction.

If there is a serious outbreak in the UK I doubt voters will risk a Labour government. Time to get serious... Look at Diane Abbott's irresponsible comments on Ebola patients, Mili's open border policy. No. Way.

Once you are a proper, serious law-maker, you can't break the laws you're writing.

Yes, I know, shaming, isn't it? I always say you can take the girl out of the 80s, but you can't take the 80s out of the girl. Before I wrote my first novel, I was reading one of the self-help classics – and it's as cheesy as you like, so feel free to laugh, Guardian readers – called Awaken The Giant Within, by Tony Robbins, and it inspired me to try. I like motivational books, because I like the go-getting American spirit – your destiny is in your own hands, life is what you make it, don't accept your limitations, jump before you're pushed, leap before you look.

I have no ambitions to be a cabinet minister, or prime minister. I wouldn't wish being prime minister on my worst enemy.

Menshn is a play on the word mention, and in the U.S. that's how it'll be perceived. Like Tumblr or Flickr. People in the U.K. thought that I'd named it after myself.

I like motivational books, because I like the go-getting American spirit - your destiny is in your own hands, life is what you make it, don’t accept your limitations, jump before you’re pushed, leap before you look.

I'm not sure I make old bones in parliament. It's an amazing experience to have had but I can't see myself being Mother of the House.

That said, I can't emphasise enough - and I hope you print this - that I absolutely don't judge anybody at all who has an abortion, nor do I think they are murderers, nor do I think they are baby killers.

Abuse directed at women is always sexual or violent.

I stood for parliament with the amazing support and help of my ex-husband, but it's not something that was handed to me like a peerage. I worked hard and was elected. So my achievements, such as they are, are my own.

In my view, the future of politics is, without a doubt, social liberalism married to economic conservatism. Which means we have to make an economic argument to social liberals, that it's OK to vote for us. But we won't run the economy into the ground at the same time.