Quotes from Richard Coles

I don't have any ambitions. I am looking forward to retiring, or at least having more time. When I was young I wanted more stuff, now I am older, I want more time.

I remember in one parish a terrible row over the ideal size of mince pies, and in another two great ladies dashing trays of pancakes to the vicarage floor in a controversy over whether to roll or to fold. But the real arena for food combat is television.

Jesus comes among us, in our all division, not to instruct, comfort or inspire but to die. In doing so, He answers the sum of our self-regard, stupidity and cruelty.

My means of entry to 'Christianity was singing in a choir. As a boy chorister, I grew up with Ancient and Modern, the evening canticles, versicles and responses, and carols.

I got lucky with my parents. They were unfailingly loving and supportive, which gave me confidence about my place in the world.

One of the pleasures of living in London is the opportunity to do things that are only possible in a city of its size.

I was born into the Church of England but in the most nominal way possible you can imagine, so it's Christmas and Easter. And then like a great many clergy in the Church of England I actually got nobbled by being a chorister.

A certain check to the sentimentality and commercialism of Christmas is the cluster of bereavements that often arrives towards the end of the year.

I'm looking for some centrist political party to find a home in and it's not there, actually.

God chooses to arrive among the poor and the insignificant and the politically awkward, so what are we missing when we overlook them?

I'm not the first Christian to have a fruity past. I hesitate to compare myself to St Augustine or St Paul, but there is a precedent for this sort of thing.

What I wear identifies me as a priest. I don't agree with all this trying to appear 'normal'. If you want that to be normal, don't take off your dog collar and then put it on again, because what you're doing is playing along with the view that wearing one makes you odd.

I will be doing a lot of human interest interviews. It involves empathising and listening. Which is a lot of what my day job is about. And, frankly, the priesthood isn't without its element of showbusiness.

The dog collar is fascinating to people, when it doesn't repel. I've got used to being shouted at in the street.

Grandpa Keith made shoes for Adam Faith and George Best. I was dazzled by such people. As a teenager, I was haunted by the idea of people living glamorously beyond my provincial horizons.

Music has given me a decent pension. I am in that rare position for a clergyman of having some provision for my retirement. Thank you, young people of Europe.

I suppose I've always had a very genuine curiosity about religion. I loved the atmosphere of churches, the ethos; I adored Evensong.

But it's true I hadn't realised quite how much the discipleship of Jesus Christ would involve keeping up with email.

My dachshunds are not substitutes for children. But the pattering of tiny feet around the place is a joy.

In the church I am very accountable, to the parish and the deanery; in the media thing I am not really accountable, I am out there on my own as a sort of busy, recognised religious person.

You find you have a lot of friends when you are rich and idle.

Trying to do Christianity properly is tough. Life as a priest is rigorous and disciplined. It involves sacrifices.

The first Christians were formed by the first Easter into a new community that transcended all other commitments, encompassing the tax collector Matthew, a lackey of the occupying Romans, and Simon the Zealot, an insurrectionist.

I can't turn the clock back but I can seek the forgiveness of those I've wronged.