If you're constantly stimulated by being called away to the buzzing and the excitement of what's on your phone, solitude seems kind of scary.

I am a single mum. I raised my daughter, and she was very listened to.

I have to fight the impulse to use my phone as an alarm clock rather than leaving it in another room. If I don't, I will wake up in the middle of the night and think, 'I'll check my messages. Or the number of my book on Amazon.'

I am not anti-technology; I am pro-conversation.

If people start to buy the idea that machines are great companions for the elderly or for children, as they increasingly seem to do, we are really playing with fire.

You'll always feel lonely if you always need validation. People don't like to be around those kinds of people.

When I grew up, I lived in a neighborhood that had social clubs. It's never delightful to glamorize one's youth. My neighborhood was poor. But people felt part of the neighborhood. This was in Rockaway Beach, Long Island.

Everybody wants a robot that will do psychotherapy. But If you don't have empathy, you don't have psychotherapy. The robot doesn't know about life.

My highest value is not that the trains are on time. I want to be free.

A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark the moment. In this, it shares something with all the other ways we break up our day: when we text during class, in meetings, at the theater, at dinners with friends.