"I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life."

"I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief 'don't matter,' that if you return to a practice of the faith, faith will return."

"The death of any man aged 56 is very sad for his widow and family. And no one would deny that Steve Jobs was a brilliant and highly innovative technician, with great business flair and marketing ability."

"Like many people in Britain, I have an affectionate respect for the Queen, and am surprised that I should be having such republican thoughts."

"Politics is an act of faith you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public."

"Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance."

"Christianity is not the faith of the complacent, the comfortable or of the timid. It demands and creates heroic souls like Wesley, Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, John Paul the Second, and Billy Graham. Each showed, in their own way, the relentless and powerful influence of the message of Jesus Christ."

"I had lost faith in biography."