The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.

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.

To wish bad things for someone else, is like looking for high blood pressure. Because strong people fall, but stand up again.

The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow.

Folly is often more cruel in the consequences than malice can be in the intent.

I think anything that gets people outside [is good] - I'm a big supporter of public parks and public spaces.

Poems are language turned into art; sound and sense matter; they can be as long or longer than The Odyssey or as short or shorter than a haiku. Not very helpful.

Not only do we as individuals get locked into single-minded views, but we also reinforce these views for each other until the culture itself suffers the same mindlessness.

It's not the work which kills people, it's the worry. It's not the revolution that destroys machinery it's the friction.

I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer.

When your heart softens and opens, your being becomes matter in your self. That is the change of matter and what matters to you in your self will change.

One day each of us will run out of tomorrows. Let us not put off what is important.