Gyles Brandreth

"If youd spent your life being called "Gyles Brandreth", you would crawl across broken glass to achieve the bliss, the simplicity, the purity, the joy of simply being called "Bob"."

"Its different now, its different now. Now I can speak the truth. I can tell you that the one thing I really, really couldnt bear when I was an MP were my constituents. [laughter] Lets face it: the people have contempt for the politicians; it is as nothing to the contempt we have for you. [laughter] All over this country, there are politicians on their way to the Labour Party conference, coming away from the LibDem one, getting ready to go to the Conservative one, thinking "God, at last hes said it. Hes said what we all feel, that happiness is the constituency in the rear-view mirror."

"Ive been keeping a diary since I was about 11. If you dont keep a diary everything washes away. And you can live everything three times: you live it when you live it, you live it when you write it down, and you live it a third time when you re-read it. Though I have to say rereading my diary for publication was a depressing experience. You shouldnt look back."

"I get to my desk at eight in the morning and I leave it at seven in the evening and I just work away. Im a work machine."

"[On the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government] I think it should be made clear that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, they have not got into bed together; they are merely sharing a room."

"I describe what I do on the day that I do it. The nice thing for me is that I do lots of different things on lots of different days."