“The only solution is to kill 600 people in one night. Let the UN and Bill Clinton and everyone else make a scene – and it is over for 20 years.”

In the end we are all sacked and it’s always awful. It is as inevitable as death following life. If you are elevated there comes a day when you are demoted. Even Prime Ministers.

There’s nothing so improves the mood of the Party as the imminent execution of a senior colleague.

The more you know about a species, the more you understand about how better to help protect them.

There are no true friends in politics.

Give a civil servant a good case and he’ll wreck it with clichés, bad punctuation, double negatives, and convoluted apology.

We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.

Everyone’s just extracting meaning and feeling and emotion from almost every aspect of music, and I think that for me, it’s a huge antidote to that to have a concept album.

What’s interesting to me is drama and conflict. Things aren’t interesting without conflict and resolution of conflict – or striving towards a resolutions of conflict.

An economy that we need that works for everyone. Where everyone works, everyone counts and everyone contributes.

Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music.

I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.

I think the government regrets having Sina Weibo, but they cannot shut it down. That would definitely be suicidal.

Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it’s not a product; it’s an understanding of human nature.

What everyone underestimated was the acute unpopularity of the Taliban, even in the Pashtun areas.