People, it turns out, aren't a product of their own time. They're a product of the time before theirs

During my past career as a journalist, I relished writing obits and equally dreaded phoning relatives for the necessary facts. But to my surprise and great relief, they often wanted to talk - they wanted their recently deceased loved ones recorded in print.

Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.

You know, there's that silly saying 'We're born alone and we die alone' -it's nonsense. We're surrounded at birth and surrounded at death. It is in between that we're alone.

Here is a fact: nothing in all civilization has been as productive as ludicrous ambition. Whatever its ills, nothing has created more. Cathedrals, sonatas, encyclopedias: love of God was not behind them, nor love of life. But the love of man to be worshiped by man.

Anything that's worth anything is complicated.

People, it turns out, aren't a product of their own time. They're a product of the time before theirs