One of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.

The best blended Scotch in the history of the world - which was also the favourite drink of the Iraqi Baath Party, as it still is of the Palestinian Authority and the Libyan dictatorship and large branches of the Saudi Arabian royal family - is Johnnie Walker Black. Breakfast of champions, accept no substitute.

I'd always somehow felt slightly as if I'd been born in the wrong country.

My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.

Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one? Faith. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience.

I'm a single-issue voter, to get straight to the point. I'm really only interested in the candidate who's toughest and least apologetic when it comes to the confrontation with Islamic Jihadism.