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.

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.

The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.

When you go for a walk, take seeds with you, poppies, rainbow chard, rocket. Plant them among the weeds in patches of wasteland. See what happens.

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.

There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.

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 count it as a certainty that in paradise, everyone naps.

When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.

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

Beauty, pleasure, freedom and plenty of sleep: these are the hallmarks of a successful idler's break. Travel should not be hard work.

One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it.

I didn’t mind the quiet stretches. It was like we were trying out the idea of being side by side.

You know, I was crap. But I had the commitment, and I had the understanding, that the basis of football is skill on the ball, and if you spend the time with it, you're gonna reap the rewards.

We only borrow the breaths we take in life. Every breath we borrow we give back, including our last. In the end, no matter how we lived, we all die feeling owed.

I've always written. I'm from an older generation of programmers [who] did not come out of engineering. [A]ll sorts of people were drawn in from the social sciences and humanities.

Making the simple complex doesn't take ingenuity. Making the complex simple, now, that's ingenuity!

Songs always get better after you start playing them live.

To forget pain is to be painless; to forget care is to be rid of it; to go abroad is to accomplish both.

I always find that I'm at my best,' Eric said leadingly, 'when I'm at my worst.

Some intelligence officers filed reports saying that this is a dangerous group, but at one level it was not forwarded, it was just ignored.