Jon Ronson

We have to understand how the extremists got the way they are. Without that kind of understanding, we'd never really get to know them. I put in nothing about their childhoods. But what I have put in is stuff about the weird symbiotic relationship between us and them.

Yeah, but in the end his followers take what they want from his philosophy. Maybe it doesn't matter what's going on in David Icke's mind. It's how other people take him.

In the midst of a burning-hot shaming, calling for patience and context and understanding and empathy can really land you in trouble.

Nothing uniquely bad has happened to me in my personal life, but all the regular little bad things have accumulated to make me a neurotic person. And these adventures are my way of trying to make sense of that.

I'm much more interested in looking at our own failings than going to some faraway place and looking at their failings, thus making us feel good about ourselves.

I consider myself a social justice person.

There was a kind of infiniteness to fiction that I found sort of... disconcerting. I remember having these really panicky thoughts, like, 'I can make this person say anything. I could make him do anything! I could put a jetpack onto his back and shoot him into space!' I don't like this feeling of having no rules.

No, people back home don't realize why there is this kind of need for heroes in America at the moment. People in Britain don't really understand what's going on here. They don't understand why Camp X-ray exists.

What I think was a really lucky coincidence was that a lot of the themes of 'Okja' are things I write about a lot: cognitive dissonance and corporate greed and also the internal politics of fringe groups.

I think if somebody is so set in their ways about what they feel about something - and you get this a lot in academia, of course, and also different sorts of journalism too - you're going to sweep under the carpet the facts that don't suit your thesis. And I think that happens quite a lot in the courtroom, for instance.

Misuse of privilege is seen as the worst sin.

Of course there are people who would like to eat breakfast without the screams of toddlers all around them, but those people should get over themselves and stop being stuck up and idiotic.