Say what? The year in quotes

"Blair should be impeached." - General Sir Michael Rose in a Channel 4 television documentary, Iraq: The Failure Of War.

"I am very surprised to see... this verdict to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came they told me something else and I am coming. So a big surprise anyway." – Guy Goma on the Apple vs Apple legal battle. Guy Goma had turned up at the BBC for a job interview and was mistaken for Guy Kewney, a technology expert.

"I always thought that the party was full of them." - John Prescott on the Tory party's new advertising campaign featuring a man called Mr Tosser.

"If you're bothered about getting shot, don't join the army." - Noel Gallagher of Oasis on soldiers who claim compensation.

"If I was a gold-digger, I'd have a lot of money in my account. I'd be worth millions." - Heather Mills McCartney.

"What I did is the same as millions of men before me. I'm not a Gary Glitter and there are no dead people at the bottom of my swimming pool." - Chris Tarrant on his infidelities.

"It's just so camp. It's wonderful isn't it. Lady Victoria ... that would be quite amazing." - Victoria Beckham responds to rumours that husband David is to be Knighted.

"You'll make an effing awful Prime Minister." - Shadow Chancellor George Osborne on Gordon Brown.

"Veils suck." - Salman Rushdie.

"I get tested for HIV twice a year. One has to be socially responsible." - Scarlett Johansson.

"This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all." - George W. Bush responding to speculation that American forces could be called back from Iraq.

"You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one." - George W. Bush helping the Republican cause on the campaign trail in Des Moines, Iowa.

"If you're giving your kids fizzy drinks, then you're a tosser." – Jamie Oliver.

"If I was in charge, I'd get rid of Jamie Oliver and tell people to eat what they liked." – Boris Johnson.

"The only difference between David and me is that I would hug hoodies a little harder and a little longer, I suspect." – Shadow Home Secretary David Davis.

"I really think the quality has gone down. All they do is try to take the high out of everything." - Keith Richards on drugs.

"Please don't grieve for Steve. I'd like you to grieve for the animals." - Bob Irwin, father of Steve Irwin.

"A shocking affront to the principles of democracy." - Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, on Guantanamo Bay.

"You are agents of Iran and Zionism. We will crush your heads." - Saddam Hussein describes Kurdish witnesses at his trial.

"What a fantastic evening; I love doing sequels." Arnold Schwarzenegger on winning a second term as Governor of California. Arnie liked his quip so much he repeated it several times.

"It's pissing it down." - TV weather forecaster Joanne Malin in a live broadcast.

"I'd shoot myself." - Lord Hattersley on what he would do if John Reid were to become Labour leader.

"She's the most overrated person in pop history. She might have meant something once but I don't know many people my age who care." - Lily Allen on Madonna.

"His achievements should look better with the passage of time." - Anthony Seldon, Tony Blair's biographer.

"The big man's back in town." - Wayne Rooney on his return to the England camp at the World Cup.

"I am not a saint. I am not a forever sinner. And I don't think I am unique." – John Prescott on his extra-marital affair.

"Ah right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?" - Ken Livingstone’s Nazi jibe to Jewish reporter Oliver Finegold.

"I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time. He would make a great president." - George Bush on the prospect of continuing the Presidential legacy.

"UKIP is a bunch of fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists mostly." - David Cameron on UKIP.

"It would be quite nice if the American ambassador in Britain could pay the charge that everybody else is paying and not try and [evade] it like some chiselling little crook." - Ken Livingstone.

"The experiment in my home, which is now into its second year, has been a success. We continued with it right through the summer and never once did a great bluebottle come into the bathroom. After all, why would a bluebottle wish to slurp up a little bit of nitrogenous waste? It has no nutritional value at all. It's just that people have a perception that their urine is some sort of liquid form of their excreta." - During the summer drought, Ken Livingstone reveals that he and his family do not flush the toilet if they have only had a small pee.

"I'm the Bishop of Southwark. It's what I do." Comments allegedly attributed to the Bishop of Southwark when he was questioned by a Mercedes owner who allegedly found the Bishop slumped in the back of his car.

"I only take Viagra when I am with more than one woman." - Jack Nicholson.

"I don't like fancy food. It's difficult in China because you don't know what's in the bloody dish." - John Prescott.

"The person responsible for this crime is Prince Philip." - Mohammed al-Fayed on the investigation into the deaths of his son and Diana, Princess of Wales.

"There were a lot of nerves. It was probably worse than going in to bat." – Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff on meeting the Queen.

"Over the last 18 months, I have been coming to terms with and seeking to cope with a drink problem." – Former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy.

And finally, Prime Minister Tony Blair's comments, on the Parkinson show, about the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Tony Blair: "That decision has to be taken and has to be lived with, and in the end there is a judgement that, well, I think if you have faith about these things then you realise that judgement is made by other people, and also by..."

Michael Parkinson: "Sorry, what do you mean by that?"

Tony Blair: "I mean by other people, by, if you believe in God, it's made by God as well and that judgement in the end has to be, you know, you do your...

"When you're faced with a decision like that, and some of those decisions have been very, very difficult, as I say, most of all because you know there are people's lives, not just, this isn't a matter of a policy here or a thing there but their lives, and in some case, their death.

"The only way you can take a decision like that is to try to do the right thing according to your conscience, and for the rest of it you leave it, as I say, to the judgement that history will make."