You cannot sell a blemished apple in the supermarket, but you can sell a tasteless one provided it is shiny, smooth, even, uniform and bright.

One of the stock Sydney jokes is of the census-taker who enquires: 'How many children have you, ma'am?' 'Two living and three in Melbourne.'

The great point about money was to convert it as quickly as possible into something you could use or enjoy.

Only man is not content to leave things as they are but must always be changing them, and when he has done so, is seldom satisfied with the result.

[... vastly different peoples live and work side by side but rarely come together, like the arms of an egg beater that] whirled independently and never touched, so that perhaps one arm never knew the other was there; yet they were together, turned by the same handle, and the cake was mixed by both.

How much does one imagine, how much observe? One can no more separate those functions than divide light from air, or wetness from water.

Africa is cruel...it takes your heart and grinds it into powdered stone - and no-one minds