It's impossible. You try to have any kind of relationship with your family with a man or with a friend and you have to be on the phone and the Internet the entire time.

In the next 10 years I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet every moment of every day.

The most impactful way consumers can assert their power is to become mindful shoppers giving their dollars only to socially responsible companies. In today's world of social media and smart phones this is easy to do.

Unfortunately poetry is not born in noise in crowds or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about.

When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call but I wrote letters I wrote short stories I wrote books.

We're living in a time when parenting is not at all mirroring the way I was parented. For me I just followed my parents around on their errands when they were busy on the phone I was quiet. It's a different kettle of fish these days: They run the house and you listen to their music and you go to their appointments.

Gossip is nature's telephone.

I don't need my phone to play me music. I need it to be a phone and an e-mail thing.

I don't like headphones very much and I rarely listen to music on headphones.

You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart.