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One night I shall put myself to sleep by counting how many enthusiasts for Labour's 1980s' madness have become disciples of the 1990s' super- sanity. We are governed by the ideologically footloose - Lord Hattersley, Labour peer

This is another slippage of sterling from the world's most solid currency into tinpot trash - Mark Almond, lecturer in modern history at Oriel College, Oxford, on the new lightweight 50p coin

Any prime minister serves the country to the very limit of his or her capabilities. Yet we seem to expect that work to be done on the cheap - Lord Hanson, business tycoon, deploring Tony Blair's rejection of a pay increase

The point about theatre is that you go in as individuals and end up as a community. If you want to dissent from that you can't do it invisibly. In a cinema, unless you go and assault the projectionist, whatever you do is not going to affect the performance - Richard Eyre, outgoing artistic director of the National Theatre

A total disgrace, a ghastly assembly of work at the level of student shows but twice as offensive - Ralph Brown, senior Royal Academician, on the RA exhibition `Sensation'

You can spend your whole life trying to be popular but, at the end of the day, the size of the crowd at your funeral will be largely dictated by the weather - Frank Skinner, comedian