We have the capacity for about 1.6 human conversations, so if you're listening to one conversation particularly, you're only left with 0.6 for your inner voice that helps you write.

We move through soundscapes all the time, and most of them are accidental - a by-product. Most retail soundscapes are accidental, incongruent with the brands, and mostly hostile.

Men tend to listen in what I call a reductive way, which is to say for a point, for a solution. You know, we like to have a problem and solve it. Bang. Thank you very much. On to the next thing.

There's a lot of research now showing that noise, and the lack of quiet working space, is one of the biggest issues for all office workers.

I'm totally obsessed with sound. It's my life.

The trouble with listening is that so much of what we hear is noise, surrounding us all the time.

Your ears are always on - you have no ear lids. They work even when you sleep.

Music is the most powerful sound there is, often inappropriately deployed. It's powerful for two reasons: you recognize it fast, and you associate it very powerfully.

We're designing environments that make us crazy. And it's not just our quality of life which suffers. It's our health, our social behavior, and our productivity as well.

You can detect a hostile listening or a bored listening or a tired listening or an excited and engaged listening.

If you put music on top of noise, it's like putting icing on top of mud; it might look like a cake, but it doesn't taste like one.

Some of my best friends are architects. And they definitely do have ears. But I think sometimes they don't use them when they're designing buildings.

You are one-third as productive in open-plan offices as in quiet rooms. I have a tip for you: if you work in spaces like that, carry headphones with you, with a soothing sound like birdsong. Put them on, and your productivity goes back up to triple what it would be.

If you're surrounded by noise all the time, it has a pretty bad effect on the spirit.

It's an interesting door opening, this use of sonic signalling - using sound to alert us in a more subtle way than a beep.

We spend all our time teaching reading and writing. We spend absolutely no time at all, in most schools, teaching either speaking or, more importantly still, listening.

There's a little bit of protocol in the real world which is quite important. If you speak to me, we understand that we've entered into a social contract. But sound that you haven't given permission to receive is noise, and generally unwelcome.

A sonic logo on its own isn't going to do very much. We get frustrated with smaller brands who come to us and say, 'We need a bing-bong'. You just can't encapsulate a brand for £500 in a three-second sound. It doesn't work.

Sound affects us physiologically, psychologically, cognitively, and behaviorally all the time. The sound around us is affecting us even though we're not conscious of it.

People find birdsong relaxing and reassuring because over thousands of years, they have learnt when the birds sing, they are safe; it's when birds stop singing that people need to worry.

I love reading other people's papers on the Tube.

I think absolute honesty may not be what we want. I mean, 'My goodness, you look ugly this morning.' Perhaps that's not necessary.

My dream is to make the world sound better, but the only way to do that is to let businesses see that there is profit in it.

All of our physical rhythms are being affected by sound outside us all the time.