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I don't even pretend we can occupy the Lib Dem holier-than-thou, hands-entirely-clean-and-entirely-empty-type stance. No, we are getting our hands dirty, and inevitably and totally understandably we are being accused of being just like any other politicians.

I can't get inside the head of a politician today.

I shake hands very gladly politically. I don't think you could be a politician if you didn't shake hands.

In all the things I've gone through as a politician, I have seen that in this system it is really very difficult to make any headway without being somehow tainted. And let me say, 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.'

Political life is like a big wheel: constantly turning. At times you are up, at times down. But always, the wheel keeps moving.

Great presidents, and even those not so great, never complained about the hands they were dealt. Just the opposite. They assumed they were in the big chair to meet big challenges, no matter how difficult.

Always, since our birth, we've insisted on another way of doing politics. Now, we had the chance to do it without arms, but without stopping being Zapatistas; that's why we keep the masks on.

Clinton's hands remain incredibly clean, don't they, and Tony Blair's smile remains as wide as ever. I view these guises with profound contempt.

Politicians are so... detested; they don't actually walk amongst people now.

American presidents always avoid shaking hands with brutal dictators, except when it's advantageous to do so.