The trouble is, when professional spies go out of their way to make a definitive statement about one of their own, the public tends to believe the opposite: which puts us all back where we started.

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.

In America, disagreement with the policies of the government does not necessitate a lack of patriotism!

Cynicism is a disease. Optimism is the cure.

One picture is worth 1, 000 denials.

You always want your friends to like who you're seeing.

Sanctimony is the most inexpensive form of morality. It costs us nothing to make much of small matters in others.

Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realized, it is hardly distinguishable from fantasy.

When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?

Pied Piper' came to me all at once; I wanted to do a fairy-tale movie with some edge, but not 'dark,' per se.

Leadership is about empowering others to achieve things they did not think possible.

It's not rocket science. Hong Kong has 95% tax compliance, because it's code is only 4 pages long with a 15% flat tax.