Somebody talked me into writing an autobiography about six or seven years ago. And I said I'd try. We talked into a tape recorder, and after a couple of months, I said, To hell with it. I was so depressed. It was like saying, 'This is the end.' I was more interested in what the hell was coming the next day or the next week.

We're not spending enough money, but probably we let the teachers unions set curriculas which don't teach them the right things. There's not emphasis on the ...the basic learning that you need if you're going to go on in a college and into post-graduate work.

When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right.

No one's going to be able to operate without a grounding in the basic sciences. Language would be helpful, although English is becoming increasingly international. And travel. You have to have a global attitude.

One thing I resent is the slur that I just support political candidates because of the business.

The UK desperately needs less government and freer markets.

To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birth of mass media – which, incidentally, is what really destroyed the old world of kings and aristocracies. Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control.