I got into trouble a while ago for saying that I thought the internet led to increased literacy - people scolded me about the shocking grammar to be found online - but I was talking about fundamentals: quite simply, you can't use the net unless you can read.

There's nothing like a shovel full of dirt to encourage literacy.

You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people's command of English - that's nonsense.

Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.

It's no use of talking unless people understand what you say.

We really thought we'd get into trouble talking to people.