Some places are like family. They annoy us to no end, especially during the holidays, but we keep coming back for more because we know, deep in our hearts, that our destinies are intertwined.

When you're stuck on something creatively, you can't solve a problem, you go to a coffee shop.

You look around the world at geniuses, and they don't appear randomly, they appear in genius clusters. Athens in 50 BC, Florence 1500, Silicon Valley today. This is not a coincidence.

..there is more to life than just pleasure. We want to achieve our happiness and not just experience it.

That's why we feel so disoriented, irritated even, when these touchstones from our past are altered. We don't like it when our hometown changes, even in small ways. It's unsettling. The playground! It used to be right here, I swear. Mess with our hometown, and you're messing with our past, with who we are. Nobody likes that.

As I railed on and on, I became increasingly energied and excited by my own misery and misanthropy until I reached a kind of orgasm of negativity.'... The Brits don't merely enjoy misery, they get off on it.

I think we should have more coffeehouses, more cafes, more "third places." More places where people can get together that's not work, not home, and where they can interact with people who are different from them.