"Most of what needs to be changed in the euro zone can be done without treaty changes. The demand for treaty change is as political as it is legal and I don't think it's going to happen soon."

"The UK is not going to leave the European Union. Of course not. We are inextricably wound up with Europe. In terms of culture, history and geography, we are a European nation."

"Liberalism is a really old British tradition and it has a completely different attitude towards the individual and the relationship between the individual and the state than the collectivist response of Labour, and particularly Old Labour, does."

"I didn't become leader to transform the Liberal Democrats into an enlarged form of the Electoral Reform Society. It's not the be all and end all for us. There are other very, very key ambitions in politics, not least social mobility and life chances, that I care about as passionately if not more."

"Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

"In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move."

"It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me."