The only thing nicer than a phone that didn't ring all the time (or indeed at all) was six phones that didn't ring all the time (or indeed at all).

The dew has fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning.

For as long as he could remember, he’d suffered from a vague nagging feeling of being not all there.

What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.

Let us be dreamers, thinkers, speculative philosophers, or as our spouses would have it: Idiots

Anything that happens, happens.

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.