Activists can get very preachy about things. It's more about understanding people's own experiences and tapping into them.

People think there's a single solution to complex problems, and the solution is often making an enemy of a group of people - pulling back and rejecting the other.

I keep coming back to the phrase "Dance with the system" - not just march onwards no matter what happens.

Floundering around, learning by doing but also by failing, is not only good but inevitable.

If you were disabled in Russia, you had to re-register every year, and it took up to six months to re-register, so people who lost limbs in Afghanistan had to prove that their leg hadn't grown back.

Somewhere like Russia or China, decision-makers have far fewer constraints on acting than in more open systems.

There are always pressures on decision-makers other than just what is right or what is wrong.

Lots of people in the open system are very determined to try and strengthen evidence-based policy.

To be effective at selling ideas, at being a lobbyist, influencing other people, you have to be very sure of yourself.

I see [activists] getting really angry that people won't just do what the evidence tells them, and that's not very helpful. You need to actually think why that is.

There's no point in just hankering for the big trade unions of the 1950s or '60s.

So wise so young, they say, do never live long.

I look at him and realize, maybe I overreacted. Maybe more than once.

I know that gaps can be closed. And they can be closed substantially, more than I think we believe.

I thought what the military was doing was unconstitutional.

Christ is made the sure foundation

Ever since going up to university, I have accumulated new debt, and new means of becoming indebted.

I like to work for a while, and then do nothing for some period.

College coaches want to power the ball inside, they want (their post players) to power the ball up, but no one can shoot from that 15-foot area anymore.

I don't want to make plop art — sculpture that just gets plopped down in places. I wouldn't want to litter every corner of the world with my sculpture.

I think the best thing that could happen is that I'll live to be a lot older than my mother lived.