"The discipline required for athletics carried through to writing. You call it obsession. I call it d..." — Jeffrey Archer

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

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

When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.

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