quotes of the week

If the Catholic church couldn't stop Galileo, then governments won't be able to stop things now.

Carlo de Benedetti of Olivetti on the folly of trying to regulate information technology

If we were to say that "bad taste" is indefensible, then we would have no Impressionist painting, no jazz music, no modern art, nor hundreds of things now deemed worthy of cultural admiration.

Michael Winner, film director

When you get to the sort of level we are talking about, most of these kinds of people will not respond to an advertisement. They would, however, be prepared to discuss things on an informal basis.

Graeme Odgers, chairman of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, on filling top positions on quangos

Performers don't talk much about stagefright. The spectre of a tongue turned to stone and vomit where the lines should be is all too frightening to be evoked.

Sir Ian McKellen, actor, on Stephen Fry's disappearance