So, if falling crime rates coincide with the rise of violent video games and increasing violence on TV and at the cinema, should we conclude that media violence is causing the drop in crime rates?

The copycat effects of media violence, similar to those previously attributed to westerns, radio serials and comic books, are easy to exaggerate.

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.

Actually, I can't imagine anything more tedious than a perfect person, especially if it was someone who also demanded perfection from me.

I suspect the secret of personal attraction is locked up in our unique imperfections, flaws and frailties.

Universal literacy was a 20th-century goal. Before then, reading and writing were skills largely confined to a small, highly educated class of professional people.

The thing we need most is each other.

Obviously, every child should be given the best possible opportunity to acquire literacy skills.

It's Australian to do such things because, however uncivilised they may seem, it's human to do them.

One reason we resist making deliberate choices is that choice equals change and most of us, feeling the world is unpredictable enough, try to minimise the trauma of change in our personal lives.

On average, Australians watch more than three hours of television a day, compared with 12 minutes a day spent by the average couple talking to each other.

Timon: I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands.

Keep your sunny side up, keep yourself beautiful, and indulge yourself!

I feel so agitated all the time, like a hamster in search of a wheel.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things.

The night is dark, the waters deep, Yet soft the billows roll; Alas! at every breeze I weep — The storm is in my soul.

Strange people like chefs, musicians, and politicians affect me.

We have built a thousand temples to Fortune and not one to Reason

Truth is error burned up.

I have a very connected history with Bilal. I heard his demo years ago. I heard all of the magic instantly. He's a master at interpretation of song.

Neotony is a metaphor for the quality of life - the gift - that keeps the fortunate of whatever age focused on all the marvelous undiscovered things to come.