A foreign observer is struck by our gentleness: by the orderly behaviour of the English crowds, the lack of pushing and quarrelling, the willingness to form queues.

Japan suffered terribly from the atomic bomb but never adopted a pose of moral superiority, implying: 'We would never have done it!' The Japanese know perfectly well they would have used it had they had it. They accept the idea that war is war; they give no quarter and accept none. Total war, they recognize, knows no Queensberry Rules. If you develop a devastating new weapon during a total war, you use it; you do not put it into the War Museum.

The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.

If it is gay, ribald and lascivious night-life you are after, Israel is not the place for you. The night clubs you do find are nearer in spirit to a YMCA than to dens of iniquity.

Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.

Nobody uses his car in New York, because so many people use it that traffic is congested and unbearably slow.

Japan is, you often feel, an improved version of the United States.