Candide is one of those books I read when I was young and that I come back to regularly.

The financial crisis happened because no-one could actually say out loud how bad things were.

We are now so far advanced in our denial of evil that we want to rationalise it away.

It's a book that makes me laugh and think - it would be very hard to like someone who didn't enjoy Candide!

Rereading Candide, I was struck by the link between optimism and the optimal, the idea that we have been placed in this optimal world rather than some other.

Theatre within theatre, when characters sees themselves on stage, always raises philosophical questions of choice and free will.

I have adapted the whole book [Candid] into tweets of 140 characters, and these are being sent out daily, at the rate of eight tweets per day .

In the business world, the idea of positive thinking is absolutely entrenched.

Also, everyone thinks they know Candide - you hear people described as 'Panglossian'. So if Candide appears on a poster, it feels familiar.

Humility has to precede instruction.

[I]f God as a subject is the determined, while the quality, the predicate, is determining, then in truth the rank of the godhead is due not to the subject, but to the predicate.

I use myself as the barometer to gauge what is scary. I like to think if something scares me, then there's a very good chance an audience will feel the same way.

Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.

To the people I forgot, you weren't on my mind for some reason and you probably don't deserve any thanks anyway.

Each of us possesses a tangible living soul. The system has no such thing. We must not allow the system to exploit us.

Maine should be pleased that its animal is not a waverer, and rather than fight, lets the primed quill fall. Shallow oppressor, intruder, insister, you have found a resister.

Business leaders love the humanities because they know that to innovate you need more than rote knowledge. You need a trained imagination.

People think I'm educated because I talk and write well, but the fact is I never finished high school. I've read a lot, is all.

Our choice is not between war and peace but between life with dignity or without