I’ll never know, and neither will you of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.

It is therefore more accurate to see even the Islamic State as an errant offshoot of the global culture we all share, rather than as a branch of some mysterious alien tree

If we want to prevent the concentration of all wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, the key is to regulate the ownership of data

Property is a prerequisite for long-term inequality

Democracy in its present form cannot survive the merger of biotech and infotech. Either democracy will successfully reinvent itself in a radically new form, or humans will come to live in ‘digital dictatorships’

The main handicap of authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century – the attempt to concentrate all information in one place – might become their decisive advantage in the twenty-first century

Already today whenever Palestinians make a phone call, post something on Facebook or travel from one city to another they are likely to be monitored by Israeli microphones, cameras, drones or spy software

she did not feel as though she did not belong because there were many options for belonging

And her joy would become a restless thing, flapping its wings inside her, as though looking for an opening to fly away.

And her joy would become a restless thing, flapping its wings inside her, as though looking for an opening to fly away