Novels for me are how I find out what’s going on in my own head. And so that’s a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.

If this prinicpal thinks blogging isn’t educational, he needs his head examined: he should be seeking out every student blogger in the school and giving them special time to blog more – and giving them extra credit besides.

The way out of a crisis was to deal with it as it was, not as you wished it were.

Everyone failed to live up to their own ideals. She wanted to fall short of the best ideals.

She had been beaten down by too many boys and men, too much hurt and poverty and fear. This was what Mala was destined to become, someone who ran from her attackers because she couldn’t afford to anger them. She wouldn’t do it.

It was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.

A number is random if the simplest way to express it is by writing it down.

Technology won’t save their asses. We know that better than anyone. Technology is a tool that gives us the space to make political change. Politics are a tool we use to open the space for making better technology. It’s like parallel parking: you go as far as you can in one direction, then back up and go as far as you can in the other. Use tech to make political achievements, use politics to improve tech. Back and forth.

There was a time when my favorite thing in the world was putting on a cape and hanging out in hotels, pretending to be an invisible vampire whom everyone stared at.

It was the fact that there was all this terrible stuff and no one seemed to be able to do anything about it.