For the record

I may be roly-poly but I am happy and a diet would just make me grumpy. If ever I feel I would like to lose weight I shall miss elevenses most, but I have no plans to do so.

Ann Widdecombe, revealing her beauty secrets to 'Independent' readers

When parents visit the school, they say they are amazed there is no graffiti and how quiet it is. I know what they mean - we are a normal school now.

Anna White, head of the once-notorious Ridings School in Halifax

It's all very well for Sir George Martin to pontificate about today's record companies not signing drug users, but has he forgotten that the Beatles... were users of LSD, cannabis and allegedly in John Lennon's case, heroin?

Alan McGee, head of the Creation label, on Sir George's pronouncement that record companies should stop signing drug-using bands

People are paranoid about me... I'm just the leader of a very ambitious, creative multi-media company that is trying to become global in its roots.

Rupert Murdoch, speaking before the Cologne bookfair

It didn't seem like much of a job when I joined. No one says 'please' or 'thank you'. They just wave a note to take to some bank except it'll say 'two pizzas, extra mozzarella'. And it only pays pounds 12,000. Then yesterday this guy comes on the tannoy and says all staff will 'share ownership'. One of those yuppies pats me on the back and says 'Prepare to be rich, my boy'. I'll believe it when I see it.

A gopher on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs, which decided to float this week

There's a lot of complacency in the way we approach our diet and food production, which is why I'm quite happy to be seen eating squirrels and, indeed, placenta. People need to be shocked to make them think about the issues in eating food.

Food journalist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, on the Independent Television Commission's positive verdict on a programme which showed him eating a woman's placenta.

A consultant psychiatrist has told me that when people leave home, they often go for a walk and sometimes something happens along the way. They either keep walking because they don't know how to stop or because they forget who they are.

Jane Dryburgh, whose husband Allan has been missing since February

Look at these people, with their stomachs hanging out, tattooed from top to bottom, peeing on people on the ground, too drunk to remember their names and addresses at the police station... it's their ignorance of life which is so terrifying.

The verdict of Italian newspaper 'La Repubblica' on England football fans