When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

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.

Dreams can lie, your Grace.

The family is changing, not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.

We only begin to live life when we learn to accept it on its own terms.

In the hope to meet Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.

Core competence, as it is used by many managers, is a dangerously inward-looking notion. Competitiveness is far more about doing what customers value than doing what you think you're good at.

No marriage can survive without forgiveness. Marriage is a long term commitment between two sinners.

I am at peace with God and all mankind.

People say you have to travel to see the world. Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you're going to see just about all that you can handle.

We've got rights the right to starve We've got jobs waiting for work We're all brothers lousy and dirty We're all free and equal to die like dogs

This body of ours has one fault: the more you indulge it, the more things it discovers to be essential to it. It is extraordinary how it likes being indulged.