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The whole saga has unfolded like a Greek tragedy. And 18 months later I have lost the job I loved - Michael Mates, on his involvement in the Asil Nadir affair

Resignations are coming in threes - rather like packets of Mates - Tony Banks, Labour MP

It would be ideal casting - Michael Winner on the suggestion that Michael Mates should play Robert Maxwell in a forthcoming musical

Well, nobody is dead. At the end of this opera, everybody's dead - Sir Patrick Mayhew, after being told nearly 30 people had been injured in a Belfast explosion. He was at the opera to see 'Lucia di Lammermoor'

The kind of people who just want to watch tits and bums on telly on a Sunday night were always going to be disappointed - Joely Richardson, who played Lady Chatterley in the television version of the D H Lawrence novel

Don't tread on us - Bill Clinton's warning to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein following the American missile attack on Baghdad in retaliation for an alleged plot to assassinate George Bush

The reason they think I'm bonkers is because I have original views and speak my mind - Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, Conservative MP

Not too long ago, a spell in Social Security could be considered the old Kremlin equivalent of being asked to run one of those large power stations out in Siberia - Alistair Burt, Social Security minister

Even the thought of kissing someone turned my stomach. I was very, very badly wounded by the failure of my first marriage - Mandy Smith, on her feelings after her divorce from the former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman

Interviewing politicians can be like nailing custard to the wall - John Humphrys, BBC interviewer