Evan Davis

“Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.”

“Personally, I don't see old economics and behavioural economics as opposed. It is useful to assume people are rational as a good approximation to their long term behaviour, but it would be unwise not to think how in practice their behaviour may deviate from that simplifying assumption.”

“One of the key problems is that the Germans know what they do because everywhere they go there's a 'made in Germany' label on it - they can feel proud of Volkswagens and Audis and Mercedes.”

“Personally, I'd like us to have a few more women on the 'Today' programme.”

“It's not a bad idea to occasionally spend a little time thinking about things you take for granted. Plain everyday things.”

“My instinct is to assume that we consumers are an inconsistent bunch. We like competition if it delivers low prices, but grumble if it delivers the bad news that prices need to go up.”

“I rarely come away from presenting the 'Today' programme without some sense of regret. There is always some question that I should have asked, or some point that I should have made. This is annoying but not surprising. Perfection is hard to achieve in a three-hour live programme.”

“It's amazing, if you know what you want to say, how fast it is to write.”

“What is so striking about Liberia is that in a place where there is so much to be done, I have never seen so many people with nothing to do.”

“But sometimes it's good to dare yourself to do the unthinkable. And rather than stand in front of an audience with no clothes on, I decided to have a go at stand-up comedy.”

“We Brits print banknotes out in Debden in Essex, and have contracted it out to the private sector. Here in the U.S. it is a government operation right in the heart of Washington next door to the Holocaust Museum.”

“But beginners to the World Economics Forum have to understand there is no single Davos experience, and there is no single Davos community either. There are numerous tribes who interact only at a minimal level.”

“In principle, there are only three main components of spending that much matter to monetary policy: consumer spending, business investment and exports and trade.”

“I don't keep it secret that I live with my partner Gio. I'm very proud of my gayness. But there is lots I wouldn't want the press to write about me... it is a matter of regret that being gay is the most interesting thing about me.”

“Even though disciplined sleeping habits and the adrenalin of live radio ensures that we are very awake while on duty, there is evidence of a phenomenon called circadian desynchronosis which causes one's brain to function slowly at those times of day when it thinks it should be asleep, regardless how wide awake the body is.”

“When a population saves a lot, the funds are invested outside the country as well as inside. If the Japanese invest in the United States, it pushes their exchange rate down and makes their manufacturing more competitive.”

“The key thing about me is that I'm really not very interesting.”

“Crossrail is a prime example of infrastructure. It is a rather deadly word, but I think it is exciting stuff, the civil engineering which makes Britain tick - the bridges, tunnels, power and water networks, which bind us together.”

“We escaped the last big bursting of a bubble - the dotcom bubble - with a relatively light U.S. recession. On that occasion, the world economy found its way back on track fairly quickly.”

“Britain, however, has ended up specializing in the ones you don't see as much of: defense aerospace, making drive shafts for cars, pills and drugs, designing chips that go into 94 percent of the world's mobile phones.”