Quotes of the week

A bear is not going to compose Beethoven's 9th Symphony, but then neither is our next-door neighbour. We do not for this reason conclude that we have the freedom to experiment upon him, hunt him for sport or eat him for food.

Jeffrey Masson in his new book 'When Elephants Weep'.

Nearly all the characters in Neighbours and EastEnders are full of spite and joyless self-absorption.

John Osborne, playwright.

What would have to go wrong in Britain's prisons before the Home Secretary believed that honour required him to take his metaphorical service revolver into the garden and blow out his political brains?

Roy Hattersley, former Labour deputy leader.

It wasn't Yellow Pages that allowed J R Hartley to find his fly- fishing book in that famous TV commercial - it was the net book agreement. Without that the little shop where he found the book wouldn't have been in business.

Nigel Griffiths, Labour's consumer spokesman, defending the net book agreement.