Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Caroline Lucas - Page 2

A girl named Rachel transformed my childhood. Life was safe, suburban and comfortable, but ours was a home without books. I met her aged 11, and she introduced me to the joys of poetry and literature. It opened my mind to ideas I could never have dreamed of.

Being an MP for a place you love is an extraordinary gift.

My interest was in renaissance literature, looking at how men were writing for women in the 1590s, a time when many women were being taught to read but not to write.

I don't think Ed Miliband has the courage of his convictions. He's scared he'll be painted by the rightwing press as a throwback to the time of the 'big state.'

I am a longstanding critic of British foreign policy - and an opponent of the authoritarian, quasi-imperialist, racist, homophobic politics of Putin.

We live in a country of grotesque inequalities.

In the public mind, when they think of politicians, sadly they probably tend to think of men in grey suits doing work behind closed doors at Westminster. I want to get away from the idea.

I do think that if people are taking the time to think about their environmental footprint when it comes to how many flights they take, whether or not they have a 4X4, whether or not they are going to have a patio heater, then putting the question to themselves about how many kids they are going to have is a reasonable thing to do.

Trump is surrounding himself with so many climate sceptics and when he himself says he thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax then there are real concerns.

To the extent that Bernie Sanders was about building a movement of people where challenging things that up until then were unchallengeable, then absolutely we want to be seen in that mould.

When threats become unspeakable, unshareable and even unreadable, their power over us only grows.

I've been arrested a few times. The most high-profile instance was when protesting at the fracking site in Balcombe. It's an industry which will undermine our chances of tackling climate change.

We must have the right to name our fears and laugh at those who seek to scare us - or risk giving in to terrorists.

I accept that as an elected politician I have a number of other tools that I can use to bring about change but I would also say that the Green party remains committed to appropriate non-violent direct action and I think it is a tool in some cases that is legitimate.

There are lots of things one can criticise about the European parliament, but it does work pretty well in terms of the speed with which you can vote, the fact that there's room to sit, the fact that there are offices when you arrive.

Petra Kelly is my inspiration, one of the founders of the German Greens.

I don't think politics just happens in Parliament. It happens on the streets and in classrooms.

GDP simply measures the circulation of money in the economy, not whether or not the outcome of using that money is positive or negative.

For expectant mothers there's so much to think about - and so much to prepare for. In amongst those many thoughts and all the excitement are also some concerns, not least the serious worries for many about what will happen at work.

I think we'd be crazy to do anything to the integrity of our policy package, which is progressive, and really dealing with the key social and environmental issues that we face. We're not about to ditch our commitment to nuclear disarmament, for example, to somehow make ourselves more electable.

Fading are the days in which a cohort of towering power stations ran the game (and captured all the profits).

What does the public want? It wants a vested interest in its own energy provision - driving more efficient behaviour. It wants greater choice and responsibility at a local level. And it wants increased use of renewables to protect the environment.

A government can't cut its way out of a recession any more than you can dig yourself out of a hole.

I did try being a vegan.

I think there is a role for non-violent direct action when democratic channels have failed.

The one thing we have that the other parties do not have is a political integrity. No one thinks you join the Green party because you're politically ambitious, or have your own agenda.

Reminding oneself that not all rules are good rules and sometimes it's good to challenge them is an important part of being an effective parliamentarian.

My parents are not people who would want to rock the boat. They wouldn't break the law.

Advanced industrialised economies like ourselves cannot afford to go on growing, particularly if we want to give people in poorer countries a chance of being able to at least meet their basic needs.

We have always been a party that has had policies on everything, from education to the economy to the environment. We have always said that, if you are serious about the environment, then the policies that you need to change most are the economic policies.

On many issues, Jeremy Corbyn and I are in agreement.

The models that the other parties have used where you have a very powerful leader squashing any kind of independent ideas from the grass roots is not very attractive to the electorate.

I don't think anybody voted for the Green Party without knowing what our position was on Brexit.

We need to block dirty diesels getting public money - no question there.

We pride ourselves on our democracy, but when you see the way it actually works, I think it is worthy of contempt.

The only newspaper in our house when I was growing up was the Daily Mail, and we would never have dreamt of discussing politics around the dinner table. So my involvement in politics came about through activism.

I think if people thought we were just like the other parties and would ditch our policies at the first moment we thought we wouldn't get a majority, then we'd become just like all the other parties.

I think the Greens are posing some of the most important questions of our time, for example how we live sustainably on a planet of finite resources and a rising population, and how do we do that in a way that doesn't exceed environmental limits and which is fair.

I've been in the Green party for a very long time - when was it, 1986 - and I joined the party because I seriously wanted the party to have influence.

I'm a great believer in needing things that give us some hope.

Would the media insist on having a Holocaust-denier to balance any report about the Second Word War?

When the democratic deficit is so enormous, people are left with very little option but to take peaceful, non-violent direct action.

I've always been a bit ambitious, but I do think the Green Party is the real opposition.