They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics to take on public-sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefits system that was headed to bankruptcy. But with bipartisan leadership we saved taxpayers $132 billion dollars over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. We did it.

The sexes were made for each other and only in the wise and loving union of the two is the fullness of health and duty and happiness to be expected.

My whole working philosophy is that the only stable happiness for mankind is that it shall live married in blessed union to woman-kind - intimacy physical and psychical between a man and his wife. I wish to add that my state of bliss is by no means perfect.

At the end of four years' time at graduation we were down to 12. At our reunion that we had several years ago only 1 out of the 52 actually made it to ordination and priesthood. So there you go there's your numbers.

Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.

I promised to empower the taxpayer - instead of a handful of big government union bosses.

Now I learned soon enough that among the three two don't trust the third one - the third one is the government. Both industry and unions feel the government is a talking organization and a spending organization.

My mother's sympathies were strongly with the Union. She knew that war was bound to come but so confident was she in the strength of the Federal Government that she devoutly believed that the struggle could not last longer than six months at the utmost.

President Bush once said that marriage is a sacred institution and should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman. If this is the case - and most Americans would agree with him on this - then I have to ask: Why is the government at all involved in marrying people?

The time has come to tell the truth about the corruption of the government employee unions in this country.

Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.

Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.

Jesus didn't say 'Blessed are those who care for the poor.' He said 'Blessed are we where we are poor where we are broken.' It is there that God loves us deeply and pulls us into deeper communion with himself.

If the euro zone doesn't come up with a comprehensive vision of its own future you'll have a whole range of nationalist xenophobic and extreme movements increasing across the European Union. And frankly questions about the British debate on EU membership will just be a small sideshow compared to the rise of political populism.

After the Berlin Wall came down I visited that city and I will never forget it. The abandoned checkpoints. The sense of excitement about the future. The knowledge that a great continent was coming together. Healing those wounds of our history is the central story of the European Union.

I don't just want a better deal for Britain. I want a better deal for Europe too. So I speak as British prime minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union. A future in which Britain wants and should want to play a committed and active part.

The future is built on brains not prom court as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you'd never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.