48 Quotes by Richard Coles

I am not in favour of hierarchies that grant privileges to members who fail to uphold those values - there are plenty of those - but the monarchy is really the Queen, who is of unimpeachable integrity and the longest serving head of state in the world, and who never puts a foot wrong.

Generally on a Saturday I come home wreathed in media glamour having interviewed a former Krankie or someone, and suddenly I am back in the world of orange blossom and bells.

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

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.

This unthinking assumption of moral virtue on the Left is frustrating. I saw someone on Facebook talking about capitalist scum, he was angry and thought it was OK because his anger was righteous.

I don't think of myself as a maverick at all. Quite the opposite - I really think of myself as quite conventional but dispersed over unusual territory.

I started playing the piano aged four in an effort to copy Grandpa, who was constantly showing off and entertaining us all, singing comic songs on his baby grand.

I still feel a spike of anticipation when 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' strikes up and, in these andropausal years, I am unexpectedly moved by 'Away in a Manger'.

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