Following are selected quotes from Alan Johnston, the freed BBC reporter, on his 114-day day ordeal as a prisoner of Islamic jihadists in the Gaza Strip.

On his life as a captive:

“The last 16 weeks, of course, were just the very worst you can imagine of my life, like being buried alive, really, removed from the world.

"I dreamt, literally dreamt, of being free again and always woke up in that room. It's almost hard to believe that I'm not going to wake up in a minute in that room again.

Blockade drains life from Gaza

The movement of goods into Gaza had been intermittent at best since Hamas won Palestinian elections early last year

BACKGROUND

• Israel continues Gaza blitz as 310 dead

• Q&A: Hamas and Gaza

• 97 days and counting for BBC's man in Gaza

• Now war is with the enemy within

• The little girl trapped by a quirk of war

Related Links

• Reaction to Alan Johnston's release

• View from Gaza as BBC journalist is set free

"It was like being buried alive and removed from the world, in the hands of people who were dangerous and unpredictable."

On how messages from former Western hostages in Lebanon kept him going:

“You have to keep this whole thing in perspective. It was four months, but guys like Terry Waite and Brian Keenan did four years. Both of them sent me messages on the World Service. I had a radio and I heard and their words were an absolute inspiration.

“Terry Waite said that you will find resources within yourself that you perhaps didn’t know you had and I’m sure that’s true. The other thing Terry Waite said is you have got to just live each day, get through each day and see what tomorrow brings.

“I’m sure every prisoner held unjustly around the world just hopes that he can keep going and hopes that his luck’s going to change and somehow, some way, things are going to get better.

“But you have been lying there for three months and you wonder why you shouldn’t still be lying there in nine months or 18 months or two years’ time. That’s the fear that really gnaws at you and that’s what you’ve got to fight.

On his kidnap – after covering 27 similar abductions as a journalist in Gaza:

“I had imagined what it would be like dozens of times and it was exactly like that - it was a faintly surreal experience as if I had lived it before.

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