The 'Robben Island Bible' has arrived at the British Museum. It's a garish thing, its cover plastered with pink and gold Hindu images, designed to hide its contents. Within is the finest collection of words generated by human intelligence: the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Nobody likes a smart alec. Which is why it's always better for your career to be wrong and in company rather than right and on your own.

That's the problem with very high taxes - they don't redistribute wealth; they redistribute people.

A minister is supposed to be there to remind his permanent officials that they work for the rest of us. If, instead, he becomes the cabinet champion and public spokesman for his department, democracy is vitiated.

Simplifying' the tax code is a priority mainly for people who make enough money to want to avoid paying taxes, and who make their money by means unorthodox enough to make avoiding taxes possible and desirable.

I believe in capitalism for everybody, not necessarily high finance but capitalism that works for the working men and women of this country who are out there paddling alone in America right now.

My wife gave me a year to start making money out of writing, and after six months, I'd made not a bean. Suddenly, the books took off, and the beans started coming in!

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.