Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.

There is almost no country in Africa where it is not essential to know to which tribe, or which subgroup of which tribe, the president belongs. From this single piece of information you can trace the lines of patronage and allegiance that define the state.

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

A Great voice has fallen silent. A great heart has stopped.

Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

Millions of people die every day. Everyone's got to go sometime. I've came by this particular tumor honestly. If you smoke, which I did for many years very heavily with occasional interruption, and if you use alcohol, you make yourself a candidate for it in your sixties.