I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

There is no way you're going to have an event like 9/11 and expect things to remain the same. They killed 3,000 people in New York on that day, and if they could have they would've killed 300,000.

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated.

I may find Saddam Hussein's regime abhorrent - any normal person would - but the survival of it is in his hands.

Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

In Downing Street they called me 'Boss'. Civil servants would always call me 'Prime Minister'.

However much I dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice.

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.

I would've loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn't good enough.

The threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability - that threat is real.

It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.

Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is... everyone now accepts that if there is a default by Saddam the international community must act to enforce its will.

Those who wish to cause religious conflict are small in number but often manage to dominate the headline.

I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

I can only go one way. I've not got a reverse gear.

Once his wife goes to sleep it takes a minor nuclear explosion to wake her.

Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.

I think the journey for a politician goes from wanting to please all the people all the time, to a political leader that realises in the end his responsibility is to decide. And when he decides, he divides.

I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.

There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.

You only require two things in life: your sanity and your wife.

And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty.

Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

Be a doer and not a critic.

But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.

But as I always say to people I'm essentially a public service person.

But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.

But the world is ever more interdependent. Stock markets and economies rise and fall together. Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order.

Education is the best economic policy there is.

Every so often, I feel I should graduate to classical music, properly. But the truth is, I'm more likely to listen to rock music.

Genetic modification has many different areas, for example in medicine, and Britain is at the leading edge of this new technology. I don't know, but people tell me, it could indeed by the leading science of the 21st century. All I say to people is: 'Just keep an open mind and let us proceed according to genuine scientific evidence.'

Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics.

I have long believed this interdependence defines the new world we live in.

I learnt a lot in government, and I've learnt a lot since leaving government. The kind of journey of being in government is that you start at your most popular and least capable, and you end at your most capable and least popular.

I mean, I went to a church school when I was younger and imbibed a certain amount of religion then but it was really in university that I got interested in religion and politics at the same time. I don't think as if it were one moment of conversion but my spiritual journey really began then.

I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorists; or surrender power. It's your choice.

If you are trying to take a difficult decision and you're weighing up the pros and cons, you have frank conversations. Everybody knows this in their walk of life.

In April 1991, after the Gulf war, Iraq was given 15 days to provide a full and final declaration of all its WMD.

In retrospect, the Millennium marked only a moment in time. It was the events of September 11 that marked a turning point in history, where we confront the dangers of the future and assess the choices facing humankind.

Leaders lead but in the end it's the people who deliver.

My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn't especially religious.

My faith foundation works to bring about a greater respect and understanding between different faiths. We basically work with six popular religions in the world which are the three Abrahamic religions, Hinduism and Buddhism and Sikhism.

My view is that you still, in order to win from the Labour perspective, have to have a strong alliance with business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform.

Our new world rests on order. The danger is disorder. And in today's world, it can now spread like contagion.

People know where I stand in the Labour party and what I believe in.

So actually I only got a mobile phone the day after I left being Prime Minister.