“Thinking like ethical people, dressing like ethical people, decorating our homes like ethical people makes not a damn of difference unless we also behave like ethical people.”

“Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers.”

“The problem is compounded by the fact that the connection between cause and effect seems so improbable. By turning on the lights, filling the kettle, taking the children to school, driving to the shops, we are condemning other people to death. We never chose to do this. We do not see ourselves as killers. We perform these acts without passion or intent.”

“Writers are also sort of like vultures, but with fewer ethics.”

“The trouble is that people hate coaches, and for good reason. Coach travel is a dismal and humiliating experience. When I take the bus, as I sometimes must, from Oxford to Cambridge, I arrive feeling almost suicidal.”

“In managing our transport systems, our governments must constantly negotiate the paradox of mass movement. They must create a system which, for the sake of speed and efficiency, treats us like a herd, constantly prodded and coralled, divided, re-formed and forced into line. At the same time it must grant us the illusion of autonomy.”

“We are often told we are materialistic. It seems to me, we are not materialistic enough. We have a disrespect for materials. We use it quickly and carelessly. If were genuinely materialistic people, we would understand where materials come from and where they go to. But, at the moment, the entire global economy seems to be built on the model of digging things up from one hole in the ground on one side of the earth, transporting them around the world, using them for a few days, and sticking them in a hole in the ground on the other side of the world.”