I was quite able at the insignificant work I did in MI6, but absolutely dysfunctional in my domestic life. I had no experience of fatherhood. I had no example of marital bliss or the family unit.

It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

The only reward for love is the experience of loving.

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

Blackmail is more effective than bribery.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

Whatever befalls us, we will endure it together. I clutch my longbow and dagger close to my side. My last thoughts linger on my husband and my boy. I will not let harm come to either of them.

We must recognize that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity.

Barry Bonds in the news. Yesterday Barry Bonds' agent said that Bonds could hit as many as 1,000 home runs. And the agent admitted he's on more drugs than Barry Bonds.

Changing the way you dress can make it easier to make deeper changes in the structure of your personality.

Gossip is putting two and two together, and making it five.

I believe that we all have the potential to love any human being, and that just love who you wish and celebrate it the best you can.

You can't be human alone.

Be courageous. Be independent. Only remember where the true courage and independence come from.

I have trouble sleeping, at the end of the night. There's a lot of stimulus and my brain is processing a lot of different arcs and personalities. I'm always processing things, so I don't sleep.

There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn't fool with booze until he's fifty; then he's a damn fool if he doesn't.