"Fucking well turn that music down. I’ve asked you twice TO TURN THE MUSIC. DOWN"

"If there’s one thing I learned from being treasurer of Morgan Stanley it is never to buy structured products from derivatives people"

“I suspect eventually it won’t be management who decide whether HSBC is based in the UK or elsewhere. It will be the major shareholders who will consider the cost of being in the UK, the return on equity and whether that justifies the investment that they have made in the company”

"Someone should go away and think this through properly"

"We don’t think there are cases where people have been evicted out of homes where they shouldn’t have been"

"History tells you that the dollars you put to work at this stage in the cycle are very attractive. Buying larger equity stakes does not mean that you are oversizing – it just means that you are buying at a different point in the cycle"

"There may well be some market participants who want us to not comply with the statute, they may want to interpret it softly. But Congress really did say there’s got to be comprehensive regulation of the dealers, there’s got to be a mandate for clearing and there is a requirement for trading and real-time reporting"

"It does not solve the fundamental fiscal problems, but it gives countries several years for swift action"

"Problems of this sort are rarely confined to one institution; the dotcom era shows us that in the wake of a crisis, business practices which were considered normal at the time can look very much worse with the benefit of hindsight and in a legal setting"

"When I’m asked what I want my legacy to be when I finally leave Royal Bank, I say that any time a chief executive starts talking about his legacy it’s time to sell the shares"

"If you see me dancing tango you will know that I have never taken lessons. I am a very bad dancer. This was part of undermining my position and was all lies"

"What happened here had nothing to do with risk management. It was down to sheer stupidity"

"The maximum size is that at which it is still possible to maintain the unique culture of this organization and to manage our risks"

"We were sure of it before. Now we’re double sure of it"

"I thought I was a conservative. I think I could have been more conservative"

"It’s quite hard to make a case for subordinated debt at all"

"No bank’s stakeholders are going to be comfortable operating with the thin margins of capital they had two years ago. Take that capital model to the Smithsonian because you’re never going to see it again"

"We are the Betty Ford clinic for financial institutions"

"So far-reaching and significant may be the decisions to come around capital requirements, funding liquidity and reserving that policymakers should not be precipitate in making those. Indeed I would advise that no such decisions should be taken now. There is no need"

"I don’t see why any bank should be allowed to pay it back faster than we do"

"It will not happen and if it happens ... we will deliver the appropriate answer to a problem which will not occur"

"The $1.2 million reported in the press was for the renovation of my office, two conference rooms and a reception area. The expenses were incurred over a year ago in a very different environment"

"We call upon the top management of the commercial banks to take these decisions into account and recognize that they are operating in an environment in which a lot of the fundamental risks to liquidity and solvency have been addressed. There now is a different situation because of the actions of central banks and governments. The banks should recognize that they are no longer in a similar state of shock as they were for example in September"

"The issue has gone unanswered for years. What is going on is simple stealing. We don’t need new laws against this, we already have them. If the Fed won’t step in, then the Department of Justice has to"

"This is a profound ethical issue. These are very sophisticated operations where the counterparty was not a hedge fund – it was not even a financial institution. Should a grocery chain be selling volatility protection?"

"I’m nothing like Howard Hughes. He was something of an eccentric. I have a very normal life"

"For the rest of the bank, we’re actually managing the businesses; with the problem assets we’re not really managing them at all, we’re just managing the accounting"

"If you don’t fully understand an instrument, don’t buy it. If you would not buy for yourself a specific product, don’t try to sell it. If you don’t know very well your customers, don’t lend them any money. If you do all these things, you will be a better banker, my son"

"We’ve certainly seen some clients actively seeking out firms that have avoided the worst of the problems. I should say ‘there, but for the grace of God’... but the truth is, we’ve so far avoided massive write-downs and that’s allowed us to focus on our clients and their needs, and not have to be very focused on ourselves"

"I don’t think it’s a Great Depression, I don’t think it’s Armageddon but I think that it’s purely wishful thinking for people to be forecasting a sharp V-shaped recovery in the second half of the year"