ANDREW MARR

Rude interviewers are ten a penny, and politicians have long since learned how to cope.

My kids wouldn't dream of buying a newspaper - and we are a newspaper household.

The business of funding digging journalists is important to encourage. It cannot be replaced by bloggers who don't have access to politicians, who don't have easy access to official documents, who aren't able to buttonhole people in power.

In global terms, to be born British remains a remarkable stroke of luck.

Journalism is nine-tenths being in the right places at the right time.

Androgynous fashion, long hair, the Pill, a new interest in the inner psychological life - an unabashed sloppiness, if you will - really marks the sixties. It was when Britain went girlie. And what do girls do? Girls shop.

Unlike the general public, I rather like most politicians.

The British happened to the rest of the world. Now the world happens to Britain.

Journalism is often simply the industrialisation of gossip.

I'm a great believer in the direct quote in quotation marks and the hard fact.

In the end, does it really matter if newspapers physically disappear? Probably not: the world is always changing. But does it matter if organisations independent enough and rich enough to employ journalists to do their job disappear? Yes, that matters hugely; it affects the whole of life and society.

Unlike the general public, I rather like most politicians.

I'm a great believer in the direct quote in quotation marks and the hard fact.

Verbally, I'm quite fast on my feet. I could embarrass or anger most people if I wanted to.

Clearly the human story is one of acceleration. There has been a Moore curve in terms of the number of people alive on the planet, our technological ability, and our ability to understand ourselves. We have had this extraordinary, explosive growth in our ingenuity.

My kids wouldn't dream of buying a newspaper - and we are a newspaper household.

The business of funding digging journalists is important to encourage. It cannot be replaced by bloggers who don't have access to politicians, who don't have easy access to official documents, who aren't able to buttonhole people in power.

Rude interviewers are ten a penny, and politicians have long since learned how to cope.

Interviews, and hence interviewers, are there to help shed light, and to let viewers judge for themselves. We are not judges, juries, commentators or torturers - nor friends, either.

It’s been a very slow, very expensive business—reforming the welfare state.

It’s hard for the opposition party to break in when things are going well economically.

In global terms, to be born British remains a remarkable stroke of luck.

The great background question about the Labour governments of the sixties is whether with a stronger leader they could have gripped the country's big problems and dealt with them. How did it happen that a cabinet of such brilliant, such clever and self-confident people achieved so little? In part, it was the effect of the whirling court politics demonstrated by 'In Place of Strife'.

Journalism is often simply the industrialisation of gossip.

Hard news really is hard. It sticks not in the craw but in the mind. It has an almost physical effect, causing fear, interest, laughter or shock.

Androgynous fashion, long hair, the Pill, a new interest in the inner psychological life - an unabashed sloppiness, if you will - really marks the sixties. It was when Britain went girlie. And what do girls do? Girls shop.

Journalism is nine-tenths being in the right places at the right time.

The truth is, "What is a journalist?" is one of those questions for which there is no proper answer. The prehistory of modern journalism shows it has been a ragged and confusing trade all the way through.

History is either a moral argument with lessons for the here-and-now, or it is merely an accumulation of pointless facts.

The British happened to the rest of the world. Now the world happens to Britain.