# Quote — Dave Eggers, The Circle

> "It was selfish and nothing more. The same way a child doesn't want to share her favorite toy. I understand that secrecy is part of, well, an aberrant behavior system. It comes from a bad place, not a place of light and generosity. And when you deprive your friends, or someone like your son Gunner, of experiences like I had, you're basically stealing from them. You're depriving them of something they have a right to. Knowledge is a basic human right. Equal access to all possible human experience is a basic human right."

- Author: [Dave Eggers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers.md)
- Book: [The Circle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers/the-circle.md)
- Page: 303
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dave_Eggers#The_Circle_(2013)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers/the-circle/it-was-selfish

## More from this book

> It was not knowing that was the seed of madness, loneliness, fear. But there were ways to solve all this. Clarity had made her knowable to the world, and had made her better, had brought her close, she hoped, to perfection. Now the world would follow. Full transparency would bring full access, and there would be no more not-knowing. Mae smiled, thinking about how simple it all was, how pure. Bailey shared her smile.

p. 470 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers/the-circle/it-was-not.md)

> "It's not that I'm not social. I'm social enough. But the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No one needs the level of contact you're purveying. It improves nothing. It's not nourishing. It's like snack food. You know how they engineer this food? They scientifically determine precisely how much salt and fat they need to include to keep you eating. You're not hungry, you don't need the food, it does nothing for you, but you keep eating these empty calories. This is what you're pushing. Same thing. Endless empty calories, but the digital-social equivalent. And you calibrate it so it's equally addictive."

p. 134 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers/the-circle/its-not-that.md)

> "Under the guise of having every voice heard, you create mob rule, a filterless society where secrets are crimes."

p. 488 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers/the-circle/under-the-guise.md)