I'm not taking any interest in politics. I'm not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.

When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be prime minister.

And I did wonder - because it's now three years ago since I left prison - whether there would come a time when I would forget it, or it would be in the past as anything else might be - no, it's there every day of my life.

Whenever you analyse anyone who has had any success and they're in the headlines, you will find they are human and make mistakes. I'm certainly that and I've made a lot of mistakes.

At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.

Actually, Sydney is my second favourite city on earth, I love Sydney, but this is the greatest.

I spent my first three weeks there on a wing with 21 murderers. I met some very evil people there but also some men who'd had no upbringing, no chance in life.

We all make mistakes but one has to move on.

I do greatly admire Australian artists.

Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.

I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven't captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!

I'm not involved in politics any more and they're quite right.

Exclusive will not be published in book format.

We go on a lot in this country about offences being caused by drugs. The truth is just as many offences are caused by drink. And that should be taken into account.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison.

I am currently doing about 30 charity auctions a year.

I'm passionate again about writing. This is important to me; it's got to be the comeback book.

I learnt a lot about myself, I learnt a lot about other people and the problems they have. If I was lucky enough to live to a hundred, how I will feel about two per cent of my life being that way, I don't know.

I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.

I've been doing nineteen hours a day on London, nothing else, I mean this has been my whole life, and writing has been put on one side, and if I'm privileged enough to be the Mayor of this city, then I will not write again.

But I certainly made mistakes, for which I regret, I think most human beings in their lifetime make mistakes, mine ended up in two years prison - two very remarkable years from which I learnt a lot.

I've loved art for more than 30 years.

I'm not taking any interest in politics. I'm not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.

I think when you've lost an election by 179, there's going to be a period of time after eighteen years in government when you can't do anything right, and people just kick you for the sake of it, will never admit they voted Conservative.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

But the thing I felt most strongly about, and put at the end of one of the prison diaries, was education.

Well I think after leaving prison, and having written three diaries about life in prison, it became a sort of a new challenge to write another novel, to write a new novel.

What I have found is that real friends stand by you.

Very few people deserted me when I went to prison. They stayed loyal.

The popularity of an individual in life often only manifests itself in death.

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

Judaism has always been a strong interest of mine. My two sons speak Hebrew and are familiar with the scriptures and with rabbinic literature. This is the way we live.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I'm thinking of going to programming school. Learn how to sit down at any computer and learn to do anything on it. That's all I have left and have interest in.

I don't have a strong interest in history.

I'm not up on today's television for children, because it's mostly cartoons that don't seem to interest me.

It was clear that the special interest groups in California really wanted the Chinese to be shut out of the country, because that was where the racial tension was the greatest.

I think that the quality of all bands is steadily improving and it is a pleasant thought to me that perhaps the efforts of Sousa's Band have quickened that interest and improved that quality.

Warren Beatty took an interest in my career at one point.

Neither these statesmen nor their constituents sought in any way to use the Government for the interest of themselves or their section, or for the injury of a single member of the Confederacy.

I had given up the guitar between '75 and '78. I completely lost interest. I was sick of hearing other guitar players and I was tired of my tunes.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

I went to the Academy and studied with Stuck who was then a big man. But didn't interest me. I didn't know that before me there was Kandinsky and Klee who had also studied with Stuck. He had a good name at that time.

I have no interest in sailing around the world. Not that there is any lack of requests for me to do so.

Pakistan has made no mention of ending our tests. We have a missile program, and it is in the national interest whatever we want to do.

A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.

And when we draw lines in the sand with regard to certain basic things that are vital to our interest and to the interest of democracy and our friends around the world, we have to be willing to back that up.