“The world will not wait for us.”

While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed.

And it did seem to me that one way that we could bring the apartheid regime down would be if we did mount an effective investment sanction.

The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.

I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.

[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.

I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It’s very easy to underrate her significance.

You’ve got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important.

We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

[ Elizabeth II] has immersed herself, in the sense [that] she can speak intelligently about any and all members of the Commonwealth and she has played a role.

One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth.

Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.

The first meeting in 1983 was held in India and I was very off put by her. I just couldn’t abide her, basically.

We [ with Brian Mulroney and Rajiv Gandhi] went to the meeting in Canada [the 1987 Vancouver CHOGM] and I said to them there that sanctions weren’t working; they were just being busted.

And that’s what brought the regime down. The last South African Finance Minister, Barend du Plessis, went on record as saying that it was the investment sanctions that put the final nail in the coffin of apartheid.

An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.

As far as we’re concerned, there was no sporting organisation [that] should have anything to do with the sport in South Africa.

When you consider it from a human perspective, and clearly it would be difficult for us to do otherwise, life is an odd thing. It couldn’t wait to get going, but then, having gotten going, it seemed in very little hurry to move on.

The clock never stops, never stops, never waits. We’re growing old. It’s getting late.

If we wait for conditions to go from good to perfect, we’ll just be waiting, waiting, waiting.

I’ll never be bothered if I don’t have a hit because you look at the songs that are hits and they’re none of my favourites. Just the fact that we do have fans waiting here, that’s exciting enough.

You choose happiness. You don’t wait for it to choose you.

You can’t make decisions if there are no charges or issues to deal with. So it’s quite normal to wait until there is some reason to react.

I don’t mind it. I just space it out. Every other week I go out. I used to get some time to myself but I’ve been pretty busy lately. But I’ve had it the other way, where I’m staring at the phone waiting for it to ring, so this is definitely better.

The role of the comedian is to say ‘Wait a minute’ when a consensus starts to form.