If Donald Trump thinks that just by being unpredictable that somehow he can have an impact, but not necessarily commit himself to certain things, that's not the way it is going to be read in foreign capitals. Foreign governments are going to take these things very literally and very directly.

These days any self-respecting exhibition of nude photos has to have pornographically explicit images to prove that they are works of art.

Life is bearable even when it's unbearable: that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it.

In foreign countries, when people see what Donald Trump is saying on Twitter since the election and seeing what he's saying in these calls with foreign leaders, they take everything very seriously and they take everything very literally.

Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to per­severance.

Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.

Mike Pence came out and said this was a courtesy call, then Donald Trump a few hours later went on Twitter, as is his wont, and essentially linked the call to Taiwan with a whole series of things he doesn't like about Chinese economic and foreign policies and implied that the U.S. views of the status of Taiwan are now up for negotiation, that he wants them to be part of a broader negotiation with China about a whole series of economic and foreign policy issues. So, we just don't really know what exactly they're planing to do with this.