Society is based on discontent: people wanting more and more and more, being continually dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their decor, their clothes, everything.

A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power does not shield the speaker from the consequences of doing so; only comparable power or anonymity can do that.

Children, bored and opinionated, are scholars of the most dogmatic stripe.

Law is error, you see. It's an attempt to write down a lot of things everyone ought to know anyway.

I hover over the expensive Scotch and then the Armagnac, but finally settle on a glass of rich red claret. I put it near my nose and nearly pass out. It smells of old houses and aged wood and dark secrets, but also of hard, hot sunshine through ancient shutters and long, wicked afternoons in a four-poster bed. It's not a wine, it's a life, right there in the glass.

The tree of nonsense is watered with error, and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster.

Ninjas are silly. They are the flower fairies of gong fu and karate.