It is slightly chilling to realize there are rational, functional people up there employed to spot, nurture, and exploit those down here among us who are irrational and can barely cope. If you want to know how stupid you’re perceived to be by the people up there, count the unsolicited junk mail you receive. If you get a lot, you’re perceived to be alluringly stupid.

We have to understand how the extremists got the way they are. Without that kind of understanding, we'd never really get to know them. I put in nothing about their childhoods. But what I have put in is stuff about the weird symbiotic relationship between us and them.

But on the extremist side I didn't get any rejections at all. Everyone agreed to talk to me.

We want to see ourselves as curious and open-minded and smart and understanding things in terms of context and nuance, but when someone tries to do that in the midst of a shaming they're turned on.

Obviously, I like to write stories that are page-turners. But I always try my very, very hardest to be as factually true as possible.

You can say anything to David Icke and he will accept it and put it into his ideology.

Success is always less funny than failure.