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.

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.

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.

The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.

To Be One With The One Is Not For Everyone

Part of the artist's job is to make the commonplace singular, to project a different interpretation onto the conventional.

Believe, and what was impossible becomes possible what at first was hidden becomes visible.

I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

"Exercise" is such a dirty word in my household that whenever I even think of it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate.

I didn't expect us to be around after 25 years.

If any man thinks to swindle God, he is wrong.

You have to understand, child. Everyone wants someone in their life, someone who cares for them, someone they can care for. Even a queen.