"I believe there is a moral sense and a global ethic that commands attention from people of every religion and every faith, and people of no faith. But I think what's new is that we now have the capacity to communicate instantaneously across frontiers right across the world."

"Take, therefore, what modern technology is capable of: the power of our moral sense allied to the power of communications and our ability to organize internationally.That, in my view, gives us the first opportunity as a community to fundamentally change the world."

"Each year India and China produce four million graduates compared with just over 250,000 in Britain."

"We must then build a proper relationship between the richest and the poorest countries based on our desire that they are able to fend for themselves with the investment that is necessary in their agriculture, so that Africa is not a net importer of food, but an exporter of food."

"When liberals finally grasped the strength of popular feeling about the family, they cried to appropriate the rhetoric and symbolism of family values for their own purposes."

"I bought a lot of rubbish things that kids buy: skateboards and clothes and typical teenage stuff. And, as soon as I could, I wasted a lot of money on cars - BMW's mostly - for myself and my family."

"How do you rebel in a family of rebels? That's the age-old question. I guess I could have by not going into the arts, but the thing is, I couldn't do anything else."

"When you're going through something, whether it's a wonderful thing like having a child or a sad thing like losing somebody, you often feel like 'Oh my God, I'm so overwhelmed I'm dealing with this huge thing on my own.' In fact, poetry's a nice reminder that, no, everybody goes through it. These are universal experiences."