When the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by its madmen but by the sanity of its experts and the superior ignorance of its bureaucrats.

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.

We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.

For entertainment, a party bears no one in as much as those who are not there. ­

The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe.

Happiness isn't real unless it is shared.

I think men are afraid to say that they would love to have Michelle Obama in their bed, but they think it.

Every word affords me pain. Yet how sweet it would be if I could hear what the flowers have to say about death!

I write music better in the winter, I prefer making music when it's dark.

Racing takes everything you've got -- intellectually, emotionally, physically -- and then you have to find about ten percent more and use that too.

Remember, that the logo is really the dot on top of the i.

Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.