Europe is... a monument to the vanity of individuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure.

I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

When I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called rent-a-spine

If we are safe today, it is because America has stood with us. If we are to remain safe tomorrow, it will be because America remains powerful and self-confident. When, therefore, the Americans face difficulties, we need to say to them more clearly: We are with you.

Let me give you my vision: A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master. These are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free country, and on that freedom all of our other freedoms depend.

If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.

As the former dissident Vladimir Bukovsky once remarked – referring to the Russian proverb to the effect that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs – he had seen plenty of broken eggs, but never tasted any omelette.