Mikhail Khodorkovsky

I established my bank in 1988.

I knew President Yeltsin well. He would never have tolerated government officials demonstratively showing off the millions they acquired through corruption, the way it's done today.

Large companies cannot finance political parties as their shareholders and employees have different political views.

They said I couldn't play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York.

No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

I grew up in an apartment that would have made a trailer look really decadent and nice. Pretty much the only dependable thing I had was books.