Quotes from Jon Ronson

I wasn't in any way a kind of soothsayer or not surprised when Sept. 11 happened. I was absolutely shocked.

I wondered if sometimes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and a psychopath on Wall Street was the luck of being born into a stable, rich family.

In the midst of a burning-hot shaming, calling for patience and context and understanding and empathy can really land you in trouble.

My worryingly paradoxical thought process could be summarized thus: Thank God I don't believe in the secret rulers of the world. Imagine what the secret rulers of the world might do to me if I did!

Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!

'Okja' I don't think would have been made if Netflix hadn't made it. That, to me, is a much bigger thing than whether someone watches it on a big screen or a phone. Because it simply wouldn't have existed otherwise.

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.

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.

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.

Friends are the fruitcake of life - some nutty, some soaked in alcohol, some sweet.

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

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

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.

When we watch courtroom dramas, we tend to identify with the kindhearted defense attorney, but give us the power, and we become like hanging judges.

Success is always less funny than failure.

What I think was a really lucky coincidence was that a lot of the themes of 'Okja' are things I write about a lot: cognitive dissonance and corporate greed and also the internal politics of fringe groups.

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.

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.

Film is like a casserole. Everybody is thrown into a pot, and we're all in it together.

I'm much more interested in looking at our own failings than going to some faraway place and looking at their failings, thus making us feel good about ourselves.

Well, I had nightmares when I was doing the Klan story all the time. I had a recurring nightmare of basically being exposed as a Jew inside the Klan compound.

Obviously, I like to write stories that are page-turners. But I always try my very, very hardest to be as factually true as possible.

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.

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.