Computers tend to separate us from each other - Mum's on the laptop, Dad's on the iPad, teenagers are on Facebook, toddlers are on the DS, and so on.

The best thing that can happen to anybody is to be sacked or made redundant because often that's when you think, "I don't want to become one of the living dead. I haven't got anything to lose, now I can start to follow my own dreams."

Benjamin Franklin and the whole idea of a new attitude to money: "Time is money." He invented that idea. Before that, time wasn't money in the same way; in the medieval age it was regarded as sinful for money to be the object of your life.

I like the idea of becoming [fairly] good at lots of things rather than very good at just one thing. So it would be nice to be okay at the guitar or at the piano, a reasonable cook, perhaps able to fix your car or do some basic carpentry, and be able to write the odd article. Rather than being super good at one tiny thing, to be kind of average at lots of things. It might mean that you have a more kind of enjoyable, complete life.

In a world where you are constantly asked to be 'committed,' it is liberating to give yourself the license to be a dilettante. Commit to nothing. Try everything.

The idea of a government is to create an ordered, willing work force where there's no trouble. I think idlers are generally seen as potentially dangerous because they're asking questions.

Doing something you enjoy at times of your own choosing and making a living from it: now tell me, is that work?