Pain will never leave us. Instead of putting energy into destroying pain, we need to put energy into creating pleasure.

Labour-saving devices just make us try to cram more pointless activities into each day, rather than doing the important thing, which is to enjoy our life.

These days we seem more bound to our bosses than ever before. We even identify our own selves with the jobs we do: "What do you do?" is the first question we ask each other at parties, as if a job title could express a fundamental truth about our personality.

My idea of childcare at festivals is to sit at a trestle table with an ale while the kids run around and make up their own games.

I think it's good to look at how people lived before, and then take the best bits of that culture and try to mix it in with your own.

The terrible thing about the internet and Amazon is that they take the magic and happy chaos out of book shopping. The internet might give you what you want, but it won't give you what you need.

I've never understood activity holidays since we seem to have far too much activity in our daily lives as it is. Find a culture where loafing is the order of the day and where they don't understand our need to be constantly doing things. Find somewhere you can have a hammock holiday.