It's usually best not to ask philosophers anything, precisely because they have the habit of what in the Persian language is called sanud: the profitless consideration of unsettling yet inconsequential things.

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

It's not that any sufficiently advanced technology is magic, it's that any technology taking place beyond the threshold of our senses is.

Piracy is robbery with violence, often segueing into murder, rape and kidnapping. It is one of the most frightening crimes in the world. Using the same term to describe a twelve-year-old swapping music with friends, even thousands of songs, is evidence of a loss of perspective so astounding that it invites and deserves the derision it receives.

The trouble with shooting people, Edie Banister now remembers, is that it's so hard to do just one.

In a lot of places, of course, the '80s had never really come to an end.

Never mind, never mind, let's get to the part where we smite the unrighteous. I've brought my most alarming teeth!