quotes of the week

The stand in one word, is No. We are talking declared homosexuals - very definitely no.

First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jock Slater, on Royal Navy opposition to relaxing the ban on homosexuals in the armed services.

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.

Salman Rushdie.

We are Balkan people and we are uncivilised.

Serbian man in UN camp in Knin.

I'd be sitting down with merchant bankers and industrialists earning 10 times my salary. They would be hanging on my every word and I'd be sitting there paid about the same as a deputy cook at the House of Commons.

Ex-minister Robert Atkins, bemoaning the lot of a junior minister.

If you have no God then your moral code is that of society. If society is turned upside down, so is your moral code. The Communists made a virtue of being beastly to each other.

Jung Chang, best-selling author of 'Wild Swans', describing China.