We should look at how "the enemy" - people that you wouldn't necessarily agree with - have done change and see whether there's bits in there that we could learn from.

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.

How many friends would you have if you went from one to another asking them to conceal a dead body?

Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

Writers get ideas all day every day. The FedEx guy delivers a package from Sears and the writer is thinking how it could actually be a ticking time bomb.

There's only one problem with the hero's journey, it never included women.

This middle-budget drama movies are just gone.

Understanding is but the sum of misunderstandings.

I know that a mother, no matter how impoverished or uneducated, will do anything to save her babies.

Experience isn't the best teacher - evaluated experience is.

There is no intrinsic reason for the scarcity of capital.

I have been very lucky: my writing has taken me across the world, and I have seen some extraordinary sites and sights.