Many people find bald, unvarnished truths so disturbing, they prefer to ram their heads in the sand and start dreaming at the first sign of scientific reality.

If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side-effects?

The biggest teenage taboo is being strait-laced. It's easy to tell a researcher you went to a house party that turned into an orgy. It's less easy to say you like eating toast and watching QI.

My theory is that we used to have several personalities, and now we're encouraged to have one online.

Man the lifeboats. The idiots are winning.

That's not something that we've gone in thinking 'Right! How are we going to examine that now?' It's just when you take a step back you see that they're actually all sort of in that mode.

Whenever anything nice happens in the world I always expect something appalling to happen immediately afterwards.

I'm actually quite pro-technology, but I'm a worrier, so I like to envision worst-case scenarios.

Technology by default became the thing that was a new thing that had swept in and was altering it everything.

The iPad falls between two stools - not quite a laptop, not quite a smartphone. In other words, it's the spork of the electronic consumer goods world.

In summary, our world is doomed.

Courage is feeling fear, not getting rid of fear, and taking action in the face of fear.

When fear is the disease, faith and confidences are the medicine.

May your song guide you home.

Quite a small spoke is enough to stop a wheel - even a mighty big wheel - if it's going too fast.

No matter how hard you dance, not everyone will clap

If you have so many defects, why are you surprised to find defects in others?

I'm not into being competitive. I never saw myself as a competitive type of person.

I don't like pretentious films or pretentious people.