The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn't care a damn about what people thought of them, so they made humour acceptable.

All invention and progress comes from finding a link between two ideas that have never met.

The brain is full of lonely ideas, begging you to make some sense of them, to recognize them as interesting. The lazy brain just files them away in old pigeonholes, like a bureaucrat who wants an easy life. The lively brain picks and chooses and creates new works of art out of ideas.

Everything I am going to say to you is the child of a conversation. [...] That is the aspect of conversation that particularly excites me: how conversation changes the way you see the world, and even changes the world.

The kind of conversation I like is one in which you are prepared to emerge a slightly different person.

The violent have been victorious for most of history because they kindled the fear with which everyone is born.

Change the way you think, and you are halfway to changing the world.