Overheard

He uses those short, sharp words, just like hooks and upper cuts. You always know what he's saying 'cause he says it very clearly.

Mike Tyson, boxer, on Hemingway, whom he has been reading in jail, Esquire

But a guy like Francis Bacon, hey, the sentences just go on and on and on.

Tyson again

If I were dictator of the world, I'd forbid Bob Dylan to play the mouth organ.

Larry Adler, 80-year-old mouth organist, 'Outlook', BBC World Service

I might mention that when he goes to the movies, he pays them dollars 20 not to play the organ.

Excerpt from the comments on pianist and composer Ignacy Paderewski's 1921 life-insurance policy, recently released by Mutual Life, Independent

I'm going to have a little break and work out how to plan my resurrection.

Daniel Abinieri, writer of the musical Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom (featuring a topless woman seducing the Pope and a chorus line of nuns), which closed after two weeks, Press Association

A friend of mine once said, 'When I was 15 I read Junky (by William Burroughs), when I was 16 I was a junky.' I could say the same of myself.

Will Self, novelist, Guardian

I like Richard Ingrams in the Observer.

Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, asked if he read any British columnists, Guardian

In music, my tastes have got more catholic as I get older: blues, some of the classics, light opera, traditional music.

Adams again