Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. ... I have 10 or so, and thats a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.

The only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.

I suppose my liking for Italy is partly atavism, my family are of the old Roman stock. They came from the Alps north of Venice.

You can only have a war with another country. You can't have a war with bad temper or a war against paranoids.

One of the most fascinating aspects of politician-watching is trying to determine to what extent any politician believes what he says.

You can't be both a writer and a politician, at least not a good writer. A writer must always tell the truth as he sees it. And the politician must never give the game away.

Some of my father's fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, "I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any." We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.