"You don't have to have a posh accent to fly planes."

Former North Yorkshire miner Steve Fletcher after earning his airline pilot's licence and landing a job flying Boeing 727s.

"You're not on Death Row for nothing."

Kidney patient Michael Marshall, from Alcuin Avenue, on why he'd have no qualms about accepting a new kidney from an executed criminal in China

"I was surprised that I got the ball."

York City striker Chris Iwelumo on fluffing a chance to put his side 1-0 up in last Saturday's big FA Cup tie at Leicester.

"We are running out of time. It's a national disgrace, an utter shambles."

Thirsk's Barry Ogleby on the health 'lottery' that has seen his partner Eileen Quigley, who has advanced breast cancer, denied the potentially life-saving new cancer drug Herceptin - even though some NHS patients in the South East are believed to have been offered it on the NHS.

"It may not seem obvious casting but it was the role that Matthew was most interested in playing."

York Theatre Royal director Damian Cruden on Matthew Kelly's decision to star in Kafka's Dick at the York theatre this spring.

"My kid could get a bad X-ray and I could get a call from the doctor saying I have something growing in my bum and that would change my perspective on everything instantaneously, on what is and is not important."

Actor Tom Hanks, interviewed in the Evening Press about how filming his latest movie Cast Away helped bring home to him the things that really matter

Updated: 09:59 Saturday, January 13, 2001