Money talks

“[My] first job was for Mossad when I was 13 years old... [an agent] would disappear for a few weeks to an Arabic country and send me letters. I had to jump on my bike, cycle down to the Israeli consulate in Nicosia and hand over the letters. I was paid in albums of stamps. This was because I wasn’t allowed to remove the amazing stamps from the envelopes he sent.” Illusionist Uri Geller (pictured), quoted in The Telegraph

“[People] will cut their own grandmother’s throat for one dollar off an airline ticket.” Former president and chairman of American Airlines, Robert Crandall, commenting in the 1990s on the emerging threat to the established carriers from no-frills airline Southwest, quoted in The Times

“What took the enjoyment, the personality, the humour out of me was ten years at that football club. [I] couldn’t do anything right… the sports media would hang onto every single word, and despite throwing a lot of money at the club and getting it into a very, very good financial state, it wasn’t good enough. In the end I said: ‘That’s it. I give up. Because it’s making me a really horrible person, quite frankly.’” Alan Sugar on owning Tottenham Hotspur football club, quoted in The Times

“There’s a danger of there being no... culture coming out of the working classes... in theatre, you need a private income to manage just to... pay rent, buy food. A director doing four shows – which is, anyway, too many to really manage – might scrape £20,000 per year.The UK is historically suspicious about... paying artists.” Theatre and opera director Adele Thomas, quoted in The Observer