Quotes from Boris Johnson

London is a fantastic creator of jobs - but many of these jobs are going to people who don't originate in this country.

London is the most commercially important city in Europe, and it's the most populous city. It should be for the whole of the European continent what New York is to America. That's what it should be.

In 1904, 20 per cent of journeys were made by bicycle in London. I want to see a figure like that again. If you can't turn the clock back to 1904, what's the point of being a Conservative?

I have more in common with a three-toed sloth or a one-eyed pterodactyl or a Kalamata olive than I have with Winston Churchill.

I love swimming in rivers, and well remember once jumping in at Chiswick.

There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge.

The dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP they have run out of better ideas.

I'm no communist.I'm a tax cutting Conservative. But I want a capitalism that is fairer to forgotten people.

I just find it absolutely bizarre that we are being lectured by the Americans about giving up our sovereignty and giving up control when the Americans won't even sign up to the international convention on the law of the seas, let alone the International Criminal Court.

I want London to be the most cycle-friendly city on Earth, and I want more people to be happy and safe on bicycles.

The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest, and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.

I've got more in common with a three-toed sloth than I have with Winston Churchill. There is no easy comparison with any modern politician. The more you read about him, the more completely amazed you are about what he did - his energy, his literary fecundity, his ability to work - just unbelievable energy.

The job of mayor of London is unbelievably taxing, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics.

We were told by President Obama that in respect of international trade, we would have to get to the back of the queue - not a position that America normally requires the United Kingdom to be in when it comes to other matters, such as the Iraq War.

Huge numbers of people in London depend on their cars. Fuel duty is becoming a big factor in people's cost of living. I believe in trying to ease these burdens.

Volunteering is also now more crucial than ever in helping people find work.

My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive.

My point was very simple, and it was that it is absolutely absurd for the United States of America to continue to urge us further down the line towards a federal superstate when the U.S. has not even signed up to the U.N. Convention on Human Rights.

I'm not one of those people who believes in going endlessly around finger wagging and ticking people off for occasional colourful use of language.

I used to get very, very frustrated by people being told what to do by nanny in Brussels. And I remember once I rang the official who was actually responsible for banning the prawn-cocktail-flavoured crisp, which I think contained a dye called Arithrazine or something like that.

The Italians, who used to be a great motor-manufacturing power, have been absolutely destroyed by the euro - as was intended by the Germans.

It is easy to make promises - it is hard work to keep them.

I want London to be a competitive, dynamic place to come to work.

When my father began his work in the 1970s it was a very different EU. I pay tribute to what he did. But it has now become a very different proposition: the United States of Europe.