I'm very happy by myself - I'm lucky in that way - if I've got enough to read and something to write about and a bit of alcohol for me to add an edge, not to dull it.

The prince's official job description as king will be 'defender of the faith,' which currently means the state-financed absurdity of the Anglican Church, but he has more than once said publicly that he wants to be anointed as defender of all faiths—another indication of the amazing conceit he has developed in six decades of performing the only job allowed him by the hereditary principle: that of waiting for his mother to expire.

The finest fury is the most controlled.

One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.

The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both.

Happiness is fleeting and life is brief, but we know that, nonetheless, life can be savored and that happiness, even of the ecstatic kind, is available to us.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd both unite against an invasion from Mars.