I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but the living strength and majesty of the Commonwealth and Empire; of societies old and new; of lands and races different in history and origins but all, by God's Will, united in spirit and in aim.

[Before each of numerous portrait sittings:] Now then, with teeth or without?

Think what we would have missed if we had never ... used a mobile phone or surfed the Net -- or, to be honest, listened to other people talking about surfing the Net.

[On the 1982 intruder into her bedroom:] I realized immediately that it wasn't a servant because they don't slam doors.

1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it hasturned out to be an Annus Horribilis.

I don’t like to badmouth people. But I’m the head of a monarchy that began in the ninth century, and I’m apparently more modern than Chris Christie. Look, I know he has to appeal to the crazy right-wingers in his party, but the fact is, he’s not as forward-thinking as an eighty-seven-year-old lady who wears a crown on her head. It’s pathetic.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.