Quotes from John Major

I would rather go while I am being urged to stay, than to stay beyond the time when I should go.

I'm not about to write my memoirs. Not for a long time.

Ronnie Barker will forever be remembered as one of the great comic actors.

I think the biggest mistake I made was this wretched ability to see both sides of an argument.

In housing in the fifties in Britain and the sixties, we pulled down the terraces - destroyed whole communities and replaced them with tower blocks and we built walkways that became rat-runs for muggers. That was the fashionable opinion. But it was wrong.

I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.

You cannot think of Margaret without Denis. There comes a time when every Prime Minister needs someone to give him or her the unvarnished truth, and, in Denis, Margaret had just that.

Too many people looked to me in the eye and did not tell me the truth.

If we want to deliver opportunity for all, we need an economy that delivers jobs for the future.

I have a huge admiration for the House of Lords, I have a huge admiration for the people who work in the House of Lords, they're great public servants and they do an absolutely tremendous job.

Well British troops are superb in the field in terms of conflict.

If you look at things that really affect people's lives - sport, the arts, charities - they were always at the back of the queue for government money - health, social security, defence, pensions were all way ahead. And each of those areas - sports, the arts, the lottery - got relatively petty cash from the government.

My mother was the center of the family.

I don't think nations can stand aside for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Whether you agree with me or disagree with me; like me or loathe me, don't bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British nation.

September the 11th was a huge shock in the United States. It was the first time you had been hit at home in your own territory by terrorist on this scale.

I'm very proud of what my parents achieved and what they stood for. They didn't have much, but in many ways they were richer than most.

It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics, to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for the others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family - and not shuffling it off on other people and the state.

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.