Illusion is an anodyne, bred by the gap between wish and reality.

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

I try to write a certain amount each day, five days a week. A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.

Discount my partiality, but my report is that so far The Winds of War is looking good.

This is an excellent martini — sort of tastes like it isn't there at all, just a cold cloud.

Some people think that all the equipment you need to discuss religion is a mouth.

The door available to everyone that can lead to happiness & success is the modest door of the public library. I found it to be so in my own life and work.

I felt there's a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I'd be a jerk not to take advantage of it.

The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns.

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one.

Love is a natural instinct that grows if it is nurtured. It evolves itself but withers if it is not watered with affection, care, respect and kindness.

Once you start asking questions innocence is gone.

Humor can be one of our best survival tools.

Tony's [Blair] convinced I'm going to find God. I do have spiritual moments, but I don't think it's God.

In my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love.

I'm not one for flings, I can tell you that.

Let all children come unto me.

You can do all manner of underhanded nice things when you have a caustic reputation.

Beauty is very much in the mind of the beholder.

I would really love theater. I would love to do Shakespeare, that would be amazing. You know, it's whatever really comes my way.