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.

One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.

To have an interest in both sexes is equally normal. Whether it's practiced or not is something else. Some do. Some don't.

I am a born novelist, which does not happen all that often. There are people who try to write for a certain time, then they become Ministers of Culture under de Gaulle, and they begin living their own fictions.

Terrorism is a direct response to the crimes our government has committed against foreigners (besides which, the actual terrorists are within our own government)

All I want is that Americans still be able to read the alphabet in a hundred years. I am not very ambitious.

Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions.