Jonathan Dimbleby Quotations

I am going to vote for Ken Clarke. For years the wider electorate has told us that Ken Clarke should be the leader of our party and prime minister of our country,

I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for.

Why it took a few days to get it out in the public arena, during which time there was wonderful speculation that maybe there was going to be an illegal wedding, I don't know.

The moment seemed right to me for a full and, if possible, authoritative portrait of the life and character of the Prince of Wales.

That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter.

Although it would have been within his gift to do so, I think he took the view that there would be too many distressed communicants inside the Anglican Church for it to be a good idea,

Formally, there is no doubt that Camilla will become Queen.

Apart from anything else, it was beautifully done and tastefully executed - and I actually enjoyed watching it,

Ever more people are alert to the challenge of global poverty and global warming. We know that solutions are at hand. We will not sleepwalk into catastrophe. We have the capacity to forsee and forestall, and I believe we will find the will to act

I had no expectation that the Prince would offer me the unprecedented and unfettered access to the original and entirely untapped sources on which this biography is based.

The BBC has the obligation to think big. And at the moment, that clarion call sounds an uncertain note to me.

The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish.

The challenge is the culture. You have to have a vision for the BBC-it can't merely be that it's big and has a place in the market.

You have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place.

While I have corrected agreed factual errors, I have not been inhibited from writing what I felt to be the truth about The Prince of Wales.

I deplore the loss of arts on BBC One and Two.

Not every programme dealing with issues of global significance has to be fronted by last weeks winner of Have I Got News For You-but I suppose you might be wrong.

I ought to rejoice in the fact that our principal rival has died, but I don't.

Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won't be using long words.

I'm not certain that the BBC can claim to be making a wide enough range of distinctive programmes to make the case convincingly.

Over the last two years, I have been able to comb through The Prince's archives. I have been free to read his journals, diaries and many thousands of the letters.

It's absolutely fine to think of new ways of doing things, and I'm not just asking for the traditional reporter to look into our living rooms night after night.

I was disappointed not to be able to interview Mr. Clinton. I met him two years ago. I was looking forward to talking with him about issues from Africa to terrorism.

I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat.

I adore Madonna. She reinvents herself like no one else.

I hate flying. My stomach churns at the mere thought of it.