The Commonwealth is a mixture of developing and developed world, in which the developed countries were very influential and their policies hold sway most of the time.

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

The UN is hardly democratic.

If you can't be famous, at least you can be notorious.

When I became Prime Minister, I looked back on what was done before – what were the policies and actions before – and I thought that I need to be critical if I’m going to do anything at all.

Actually, I invited many Commonwealth leaders to come to Malaysia. They did not accept my invitation. By that, I mean, they didn't say they didn't accept, but they just didn't come here.

Malaysians, during the colonial period, were not given the top positions: we were always subordinate. Fortunately for us, the people who took over were mainly civil servants: people who were serving the Government.