You know that you are old when the seat on which your broker sat when executing your first stock exchange order is now treasured as an interesting museum piece - reminiscences during a lecture to the Australian Shareholders' Association commemorating its 40th anniversary

The ceremonial reading of the will by the deceased's solicitor to a gathering of grieving relatives takes place only in the movies - comments during a lecture on estate planning

If you have to ask what "negative gearing" means then you should not be using it - part of the answer to a question during a lecture at the stock exchange

The best way to be thought good is to be good - tips at a staff briefing

A book is only as good as its index - admonition to a publisher

If it's not on the Internet then it does not really exist - a shrewd observation on life in the 21st century

This Green Paper is green all right: it should be withdrawn - concluding remark at a protest meeting following the release of an official report

The silliest question in the world is: "Do you understand?" - remarks to a human resources session

If an organisation has a meeting then the meeting should have organisation ... a meeting should never be an event at which minutes are kept while hours are lost - an important message during a lecture to a toastmistresses' conference

It was the custom of my daughter's school to send home occasional notes which the parents had to return after signing them in order to confirm that the notes had been duly read; these notes were usually a source of embarrassment to my daughter when, in addition to her father's signature, on return they also bore in red ink several corrections to the school's grammar and punctuation - speech at the daughter's wedding reception

Even the titles of Acts of Parliament are now being used as propaganda tools - the names of all the GST Acts do not start with "G", as one might expect, because they bear titles such as "A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999" - observations at a conference of linguists

Not much repeat business - a marketing appraisal of funeral funds

God would not have given us knives and forks if he had not wanted us to use them - musings at a family picnic

If Windows had come first and DOS been invented later on, that would have been hailed as a wonderful advance - comments in frustration after another computer crash

There is no retiring age for authors - reply to a question asking whether Renton was proposing to go on producing book after book after book

One cannot insure against one's own folly - reply to a reporter who was wondering why trusts were considered desirable even for businesses that held insurance

Australia is no longer an island, except in the literal sense - from the Preface of Crisis Investing in Australia, dealing with 2001-09-11

To my dear wife and children - plenty of calls, but no sign of any dividends - from the Dedication in Understanding the Stock Exchange

Some companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange still issue annual reports and dividend statements without such essential information as their ASX code and the web and e-mail addresses of both themselves and their share registrars; perhaps they also have teams of clerks on high stools dipping their quill pens into black ink as they meticulously prepare their GST data in beautiful copperplate handwriting - an observation during a talk at an Australian Shareholders' Association meeting