... I think that I was too self-centered to ever develop good skills as a peacemaker. In my younger days, I assumed that it was because I was smarter than everyone else, with no patience for explaining things in short words for mouthbreathers who just didn't get it.

Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.

It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions.

The companies are multinational--why should labor still stick to borders?

Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.

It's a story of little girls who are pressed into working in sweat shops in games, who spend all day doing repetitive grinding tasks like making shirts, which are then converted into gold and sold on eBay.

If you stare at someone long enough, they'll eventually look back at you.