IN QUOTES : WILLIAM AND KATE

The pair met at university. Prince William has split from his girlfriend Kate Middleton, following intense media pressure and speculation about a possible engagement.

Here is a selection of quotes about the couple's break-up:

I just don't think she had the breeding quite honestly and I'm not being snooty I'm being factual. Royal commentator James Whittaker

He's a 24-year-old red blooded male... and 24 is a young age to be settled down when there are plenty other bits of fun to be having around the world. Executive Director Society of Editors, Bob Satchwell

Maybe she realised the awful burden she would have taken on, it's a life sentence marrying a royal. Hello Magazine correspondent Judy Wade

Most people at that age are thinking about things like, we need to look for a mortgage, but she's got MI5 helping her with bodyguards. Psychologist Linda Papadopoulos

It may be that she's said marry me or I'm going to dump you. Editor-in-Chief of Majesty magazine Ingrid Seward

It's the biggest kiss and tell in the history of kiss and tells... my instinct tells me that there is somebody else in the background. PR guru Max Clifford

They had four years together away from the royal circus, they lived a normal kind of life. Royal biographer Penny Junor

We are as shocked as everyone else, if rather more relieved than most, as we were preparing to pay out over £50,000 to punters who had backed the couple to wed. Spokesman for bookmakers William Hill, Rupert Adams

Neither my client nor her family will be talking to the press or media or commenting on or off the record relating to the matters publicised this morning. Kate Middleton's lawyer

This relationship formed in a media-free zone (at university) but of course since then Kate has been under intense pressure from paparazzi photographers. She really was at her wits end. Sun photographer, Arthur Edwards

BBC NEWS REPORT.