I was terribly shy and never said anything in class. Then I started getting into school plays. When you've got words to say, you've got a sort of armour.

I was absolutely a non-starter at games. My report for rugby said, 'Nigel's chief contribution is his presence on the field.' I used to pray for rain and sometimes it did rain - and we played anyway.

I was broadcast-struck from an early age I had saved up for a tape recorder and started making programmes.

Euphemism in the workplace does not end with job descriptions. It reaches a pusillanimous peak at the other end of the work process - in dismissal.

I got into New College, Oxford. The ethos was that you could work - or not.

People will say what they want to say, in the way they want to.

Democracy is too good to share with just anybody.

My job involves searching for 'lost' quotations - that is, trying to find out who came up with a quotable saying that lingers in someone's mind and which they wish to use for their own purpose and which they cannot find in conventional dictionaries of quotation.

Lord Castlerosse was taken to task by Nancy Astor over the size of his stomach. 'What would you say if that was on a woman?' she asked, pointedly. 'Half an hour ago it was,' he replied.

Rees's First Law of Quotations: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to George Bernard Shaw.