We need an opposition to remind us if we are making mistakes. When you are not opposed you think everything you do is right.

If you know each other well, you want to do business with people you know well. You don't do business with strangers.

Developing countries like Malaysia should have a say in changing the world financial system since we have faced the problems that it has caused.

I not only think but also look and study things carefully. When I travel around, I look at things carefully, make comparisons of what I see. I don't accept things at face value, you cannot trust what you hear or see. Don't jump to conclusions without thinking.

I'm brash and abrasive but that's because I've noticed when people are nice and polite they never get anywhere.

Once started, religious strife has a tendency to go on and on - to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility.

When you have elections in which 90% or 95% or 99% of those elected come from one party, then I think there is some fraudulent act.