Claire Rayner: The things she said

•"Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him." - reportedly her choice of last words.

•"I would be sorry if they just called me an agony aunt. There was a bit more on my plate than that. It's like saying 'she ate potatoes'."

•"I am fond of the old things, I've had them a long time. But I'm not defined by them." - on her double mastectomy.

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•"The only party which really cares about older people" - explaining her support for the LibDems.

•"I don't need someone magical to have made it (the world] for me - it's there, and I drip with wonder at so much I see." - on why she was a humanist.

•"I don't know everything. I'm the equivalent of the old girl who used to lean on the fence at the end of the village and say, 'Here, guess what I found out, it might be useful to you.'

•"I have no language with which to adequately describe Joseph Alois Ratzinger, AKA the Pope. In all my years as a campaigner I have never felt such animus against any individual as I do against this creature. His views are so disgusting, so repellent and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him."

•"Everyone's fascinating. I can't resist other people's stories. I read a lot, novels, I like stories. The stories of people's lives."

•"Agony aunt, journalist but above all a nurse." - how she described herself.

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•"There's nothing wrong with you, but there's lots wrong with the way society and the politicians treat you. Just by being here tonight, proves that you've had enough and intend to organise, be visible, win friends and change the world you're living in." - addressing a gay rights meeting.

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