Roman Abramovich

When I started to make more or less serious money – for those times – then, of course, I wanted to show everyone that life is different: it’s a new kind of life; we are earning this money. We wanted to pay taxes and live honestly.

The goal is to win. It’s not about making money. I have many much less risky ways of making money than this (buying Chelsea football club). I don’t want to throw my money away, but it’s really about having fun and that means success and trophies.

The Holocaust was a crime without parallel in history, and I am proud to launch an initiative to raise awareness of and to tackle anti-Semitism in all its forms. This is the start of an important journey and we all have a part to play.

In Moscow I feel most comfortable. I’m used to four different seasons; it’s difficult for people in London to understand. People brought up in Russia like my kids want to play in the snow.

I decided to sit quietly and do business and don’t stick your neck out and tell everybody everything belongs to me. That would only cause problems for myself. Therefore I never told these stories or declared all these things to anyone.

In my personal opinion, Russia is no less democratic than it used to be. It is a democratic country. It is democratic enough.

Kids instinctively know – although they will argue to the contrary – that they really are not mature enough to make good decisions on some important issues.

I was a regular hand when I was 7. I picked cotton. I drove tractors. Children grew up not thinking that this is what they must do. We thought this was the thing to do to help your family.

We weren’t wealthy but we definitely weren’t poor. We were incredibly rich because there was a wonderful community in Shepherd’s Bush, where I grew up. All my friends were into villainy and crime.

The more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves. If you never let them take any risks, then I believe they become very prone to injury.

The streets and woods around my house were a perfect setting for fake mischief. I would spend all afternoon pretending I had run away and had to live on my own. I would bring Toll House cookies and a sweatshirt and try to make a fire. I would sneak out side my house at dusk with a pair binoculars and search the streets for murderers. I created scenarios in my head that I always managed to escape from kidnap fantasies where I would wriggle free from the ropes.

Cotton was a force of nature. There’s a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton.

Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.

They say that every child learns from their mother – it’s ingrained from babyhood.

I have so much more to go through as a young lady. But oh my God. I feel like I can do anything.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

If you’re bringing up kids, you just want to smother them with love and praise and enthusiasm. So I don’t think you can mollycoddle your kids too much really.

I think every kid needs to get a taste of what it’s like to do that real hard work.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

I was shy when I was a kid, I was very shy, but now I think I’ve improved a lot. I can speak OK with the media and with the people. My English is still bad but I feel a little bit better now than before.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.