The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the Air. The Fighters are our salvation . . . but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory. . . . In no other way at present visible can we hope to overcome the immense military power of Germany.

I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as ‘The Boneless Wonder’. My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years, to see The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.

I drink and smoke and I am two hundred percent fit.

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.

Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even should they rarely stick to their plan.

Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end of the day.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.