I felt very strongly about the Ashley Madison thing. Of the 39 million people who signed up for Ashley Madison, only a tiny percentage of them actually had an affair. And I'd go a step further and say even if they did, it's none of our business, frankly.

Jon Ronson

The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people.

Jon Ronson

There's definitely evidence that capitalism at its most ruthless rewards psychopathic behavior. When you look at the worst corners of the American health insurance industry or the sub-prime banking market, it really feels like the more psychopathically someone behaves, the more it's rewarded.

Jon Ronson

Sometimes labeling is only useful, like with OCD. Once you're labeled you can be treated. On other occasions labeling leads to tyranny, like with childhood bipolar disorder in the U.S.

Jon Ronson

In the early days of Twitter, it was like a place of radical de-shaming. People would admit shameful secrets about themselves, and other people would say, 'Oh my God, I'm exactly the same.' Voiceless people realized that they had a voice, and it was powerful and eloquent.

Jon Ronson

Everyone's constantly scrambling around trying to justify their own cruel behavior, trying to come up with psychological tricks to make themselves not feel bad.

Jon Ronson

Maybe there's two types of people in the world: those people who favor humans over ideology, and those people who favor ideology over humans.

Jon Ronson

Shaming is powerful and useful. I'm living in New York, and my instinct is that, after the Black Lives Matter protests, which were organized on social media, the chance of there being another Eric Garner, choked to death in New York by an NYPD officer, has diminished.

Jon Ronson

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.

Jon Ronson

Film people can be quite ruthless and tough. I think it's because the industry is filled with talented, driven people chasing nowhere near enough work.

Jon Ronson

I felt very strongly about the Ashley Madison thing. Of the 39 million people who signed up for Ashley Madison, only a tiny percentage of them actually had an affair. And I'd go a step further and say even if they did, it's none of our business, frankly.

Jon Ronson

Without sounding too pretentious, I was sort of a slave to the narrative. When the narrative cracks in, I have to go where it takes me. I had to go to the Bohemian Grove. It was the obvious end to the book.

Jon Ronson

Of course there's systemic misogyny in certain parts of our culture and systemic racism and a wider range of insults women have to face.

Jon Ronson

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.

Jon Ronson

But on the extremist side I didn't get any rejections at all. Everyone agreed to talk to me.

Jon Ronson

Film isn't a meritocracy; there's no system ensuring the best screenplays get produced. It's a hustle.

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.

Jon Ronson

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.

Jon Ronson

At first, I did stories on people who were maybe just eccentric. Omar was a natural progression from that.

Jon Ronson

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.

Jon Ronson

The world outside Twitter was great. I read books. I reconnected with people I knew from real life and met them for drinks in person. Then I drifted back on to Twitter.

Jon Ronson