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" One thing I've very quickly learned is that if you wake up every morning worrying about what's in the press, you would go completely and utterly potty. "
Nick Clegg
One Thing
Up
Morning
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" With the EU taking in ten more countries and adopting a new Constitution, organisations need more than ever intelligent professional help in engaging with the EU institutions. "
Nick Clegg
Constitution
Help
Need
" You've got some very powerful countries: Poland, the United Kingdom, Sweden and others who have a genuine desire to see the euro zone straighten itself out. It's good for all of us, whether you're in the euro zone or not, to make sure that it doesn't lead to a fracturing. "
Nick Clegg
Genuine
Desire
Good
" I would be open about the fact that, clearly, politicians should be able to speak to each other. David Cameron doesn't seem to accept this, but if the British people have voted then of course you have to try and provide good stable government. "
Nick Clegg
People
Good
You
" We have got to make sure there is proper independent scrutiny and accountability for people in the press, just as there should be in any other industry where things go wrong. But let's not try and think it is for politicians or governments to tell people what they stick in newspapers. That is deeply illiberal. "
Nick Clegg
Tell
Try
Accountability
" If there's one thing I'm not going to apologise for as the leader of the Liberal Democrats in government after 60 or 70 years of being out of government, it's that you just cannot avoid but deal with the world the way it is. "
Nick Clegg
Way
Government
You
" Politics is a highly tribal business. "
Nick Clegg
Tribal
Highly
Business
" I am quite strict as a dad but I don't want to be censorious. "
Nick Clegg
I Am
Want
Strict
" I don't want to clip on the armour every morning. I've seen some politicians do this and they get a bit mangled and bitter. I just refuse to do that. I refuse to be angry or bitter or complain, and I remain open. I may sometimes be a bit too open but I'm not going to change that one bit. "
Nick Clegg
Change
Morning
Politicians
" What we should be doing in the EU as a whole is more economic integration in the single market, rather than less. "
Nick Clegg
Economic
Market
More
" Most people in this country are very fair-minded; they understand we're in the middle of a very difficult journey of repairing, rescuing, restoring our British economy, and they want us, and they want particularly Liberal Democrats in government, to fight for the fairest possible way of doing that. "
Nick Clegg
Journey
People
Fight
" I don't lead a particularly Bohemian existence. The main criterion for me is not to be judgemental of other people so long as what they do is not harmful or offensive to others. "
Nick Clegg
Existence
Long
Me
" Joining the Liberal Party was a no-brainer for me... And when you are a young man, you don't get a calculator out saying, 'Am I going to get to power?' You get propelled forward by idealism. "
Nick Clegg
Me
You
Saying
" 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. "
Nick Clegg
Dirty
Pretend
Politicians
" The UK is not going to leave the European Union. Of course not. We are inextricably wound up with Europe. In terms of culture, history and geography, we are a European nation. "
Nick Clegg
Up
Nation
History
" Actually, the curious thing is that the more you become a subject of admiration or loathing, the more you're examined under a microscope, the distance seems to open up between who you really are and the portrayals that people impose on you. "
Nick Clegg
Distance
Curious
Up
" I have got instincts that, I think, are very much in tune with people's very keen sense to see something different. I did not dream of being in politics since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I was not involved in student politics, or not in that partisan way. "
Nick Clegg
Student
People
Dream
" Voters tell politicians what they want through the ballot box. Constantly second-guessing them by speculating whether the parties should gang up on each other misses the point. "
Nick Clegg
Tell
Politicians
Gang
" If you scratch below the surface and ask what really makes me tick, it's the liberalism of trying to promote freedom and opportunity. Promoting social mobility is one of the keys to that. "
Nick Clegg
Freedom
You
Trying
" Most of what needs to be changed in the euro zone can be done without treaty changes. The demand for treaty change is as political as it is legal and I don't think it's going to happen soon. "
Nick Clegg
Change
Changes
Political
" Liberal Democrats in government will not follow the last Labour government by sounding the retreat on the protection of civil liberties in the United Kingdom. It continues to be essential that our civil liberties are safeguarded, and that the state is not given the powers to snoop on its citizens at will. "
Nick Clegg
Government
Liberal
Democrats
" We need to reach out to small 'l' liberal voters who have a modern outlook on life, who want a party that is hard-headed on the economy - more credible on the economy than Labour - but more socially progressive and fairer than the Conservatives. "
Nick Clegg
Small
Want
Reach
" You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed. "
Nick Clegg
Politics
Blue
Media
" I totally accept that it's a legitimate criticism that when you are involved in the day-to-day scrum of government... that what can get lost is the narrative, the hymn sheet... the song that inspires and lifts people's sights. "
Nick Clegg
Government
Lost
Get
" Our Sheffield and London homes are worth well over a million but the bank owns most of them - we are mortgaged up to the gills. "
Nick Clegg
Up
Well
Over
" The choices politicians make must be based on values - not an arbitrary, axe-wielding approach to public spending or a dismal exchange between Gordon Brown and David Cameron about percentages that sounds like an argument between different book-keepers. "
Nick Clegg
Politicians
Argument
Values
" One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming, cleaning, modernising our clapped-out system. "
Nick Clegg
Political
Promises
Politics
" I don't watch a huge amount of telly. I read a lot. I'm reading at the moment 'Freedom,' by Jonathan Franzen, a great big brick of a book, and I'm loving it. "
Nick Clegg
Great
Moment
Book
" I say this as a young dad seeing children going into primary school: I don't think we should underestimate the formative effect on a child of those first years in primary school. "
Nick Clegg
Think
Child
Children
" I didn't become leader to transform the Liberal Democrats into an enlarged form of the Electoral Reform Society. It's not the be all and end all for us. There are other very, very key ambitions in politics, not least social mobility and life chances, that I care about as passionately if not more. "
Nick Clegg
Politics
End
Leader
" Grown-up politicians talk to each other across party lines. Over the last few weeks I have had lengthy conversations with Ed Miliband, David Miliband, with Tony Blair, with Peter Mandelson... talking about Europe, talking about political reform. "
Nick Clegg
Political
Party
Talking