I found that our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.

Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.

The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.

The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.

The U.S. is, so far as I know, the only nation which places such extensive reliance on the polygraph. It has gotten us into a lot of trouble.

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.

The FBI, to its credit in a self-serving sort of way, rejects the routine use of the polygraph on its own people.

The only thing I ever withheld from the KGB were the names of two agents whom I personally had known and handled and had a particular feeling for.

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to resolve its reliability, and to present a finished product.

Efforts + Proper Timing = Success

It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not.

Wealth, beauty, and fame are transient. When those are gone, little is left except the need to be useful.

The fact is that the Vietnamese held Americans after 1973.

There is more danger of numerical sequences continued indefinitely than of trees growing up to heaven. Each will some time reach its greatest height.

The story of humans is the story of ideas that shine light into dark corners.

I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell.

I find that in preparation for a drama you can do a lot of character work and develop the character and know what you want to achieve and project throughout the course of the film.

You end up making a home in every place you're at, in a small way. In any way you can find a kind of mindfulness.

The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near.