A friend at school was always being laughed at because his father emptied dustbins for a living. But those who laughed worshipped famous footballers. This is an example of our topsy-turvy view of 'success.' Who would we miss most if they did not work for a month, the footballer or the garbage collector?

Every experience, good or bad, is a priceless collector's item.

The first Christians were formed by the first Easter into a new community that transcended all other commitments, encompassing the tax collector Matthew, a lackey of the occupying Romans, and Simon the Zealot, an insurrectionist.

I'm a geeky toy collector, and to have toys of your own characters is unbelievably cool.

I don't have huge bank accounts. I'd love one. But it wouldn't change much. I don't have any expensive habits. I'm not a car collector or any of that nonsense. But I'd love to be incredibly wealthy for no reason at all.

I'm not a collector. I don't like the toy cupboard syndrome that causes so many good cars to evaporate.

I'm fascinated by the narrative of geology, and I'm a veritable pack rat of a collector on the road. I keep a rock hammer in my car.

I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

Conservation is key to preserving many of the world's natural beauty spots, so do your best to help by keeping to designated footpaths and being a discerning souvenir collector.

The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there's a difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.

I'm a big collector of vinyl - I have a record room in my house - and I've always had a huge soundtrack album collection. So what I do as I'm writing a movie is go through all those songs trying to find good songs for fights or good pieces of music to layer into the film.

The scarcity of the music not only makes the music itself enjoyable but it also gives the collector a strange sense of superiority.

It has been common knowledge to informed collectors that many times the finest and rarest art glass is found unsigned.

I'm a geeky toy collector and to have toys of your own characters is unbelievably cool.

A saboteur in the house of art and a comedienne in the house of art theory Lawler has spent three decades documenting the secret life of art. Functioning as a kind of one-woman CSI unit she has photographed pictures and objects in collectors' homes in galleries on the walls of auction houses and off the walls in museum storage.

Megacollectors suppose they can enter art history by spending astronomical amounts.