Michael Portillo

“If you are a fan of my BBC series 'Great Continental Railway Journeys,' you'll probably not be surprised to learn that one of my great aspirations is to travel on Egypt's railways.”

“A wood carving of Quixote on his nag Rocinante graced my childhood home.”

“Whenever I'm in Edinburgh, which I visit often, I always try to hop on a train to Kirkcaldy to visit the art gallery, where my grandfather was convenor for 36 years, to revisit the marvellous paintings from my childhood - as do other family members.”

“Before my teens, my contemporaries were reading Tolkien and were absorbed by his works, but try as I might, I could not be drawn in, perhaps as something in me resists the epic, medieval-feeling fantasy.”

“I have that normal male thing of valuing myself according to the job I do.”

“Like so many other grammar schools that flourished in Britain before they were abolished through a mix of ideology and political folly, Harrow County was a fiercely competitive institution, where all boys were taught to strive for excellence. It was precisely because of this demanding regime that results were so good.”

“Our situations... are very different. The nature of our politics is different. I don't deny, though, that political cycles, which are observable in the United States, are sometimes observable here.”

“The advantage of trains over planes is that there is much less hassle. You can get up from your seat and stroll about; you're more likely to meet people, and, particularly if you're making a long journey, you can actually see the terrain.”

“People wear extraordinarily bright colours in India.”

“There's much about the British Raj which I think is disreputable. It was rapacious; it was a sort of kleptocracy, and it was also racist. Indians were not treated as equals.”

“It's not as if I've ever been to prison or been close to going to prison. The closest I've got is knowing people who have been in jail - after all, I was a member of Parliament - and visiting them there during their sentence.”

“Ask anyone where they were when they heard of Diana's death, and they won't hesitate, because nobody can forget. Along with 9/11, it remains the most poleaxeing public event, news so shocking it made me shake, and drove everything else from my mind for days.”

“They say travel enables you to encounter your opposite. If this is true, I think I may have met mine in a shepherd's hut in Transylvania.”

“I worry how I look.”

“The late 1960s was another time and another world.”

“Music turns the world upside down.”

“King Edward VIII was forced to abdicate because he was determined to marry a divorced woman. As a result of that decision, the Queen's father, George VI, was obliged to lead the country through a war that threatened its survival, with all the personal pain portrayed in 'The King's Speech.'”

“A vocation is a noble thing and not to be subverted by the whims of politicians.”

“Travelling the railways of Europe with a century-old guidebook can be disconcerting: fares, food, and drink seem shockingly expensive compared with what they were; trains and paddle-steamers run to unexpected timetables (assuming they're still running at all); and not only states but whole empires have been wiped from the map.”