Ive only just arrived but already I can feel there’s real buzz around — Peter Mandelson

"Before this campaign started, it was said that I was facing political oblivion, my career in tatters, apparently never to be part of political life again. Well they underestimated Hartlepool and they underestimated me, because I am a fighter and not a quitter!My political opponents can have their pound of flesh, and they do, but they will not eat into of my beliefs, what I stand for and have done in politics. That is the inner steel in me."

"[On Jeremy Corbyns then Labour leadership] I work every single day, in some small way, to try to move forward the end of his tenure in office. I work every day — an email, a phone call, a meeting with Labour MPs. I try and galvanise them. Every day I do something to rescue the Labour Party from his leadership."

"The [Labour] party has lost its efficacy for many in these places [...] We are in an era of much weaker party loyalty and affiliation than ever before. They [voters] are casting around for a different sort of politics, less hidebound by tradition, old emblems, sentimentality, and for a more transactional, efficacious approach ... They are not so much left behind; its Labour that is being left behind."

"As you will have seen my position as Ambassador to the United States has come to an end. Being Ambassador here has been the privilege of my life, and Reinaldos. I could not have wished for a better welcome by you all, a better introduction to the job or better support while here. Your professionalism has been superb, more so than I have experienced in any public role. For this I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The circumstances surrounding the announcement today are ones which I deeply regret. I continue to feel utterly awful about my association with Epstein twenty years ago and the plight of his victims. I have no alternative to accepting the Prime Ministers decision and will leave a position in which I have been so incredibly honoured to serve."

"I regret ever meeting him or being introduced to him by his partner Ghislaine Maxwell [...] I regret even more the hurt he caused to many young women. [...] I’m not going to go into this. Its an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off. OK?"

"The Lord Mandelson, denied the opportunity to become Foreign Secretary by the sad combination of a Prime Minister too weak to remove his Foreign Secretary and, equally, a Foreign Secretary too weak to challenge the Prime Minister, has gone around instead collecting titles and even whole Departments to add to his name. His title now adds up to, "The right hon. the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills". It would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find that he had become an archbishop! That is exactly what happened with Cardinal Wolsey."

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

"yes is a pleasant country... love is a deeper season than reason"

"true lovers in each happening of their hearts live longer than all which and every who"

"What concerns me fundamentaly is a meteoric burlesk melodrama, born of the immemorial adage love will find a way."

"Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flower Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!"

"Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others Wanings shouldst thou fret? Then only mightst thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight."