Most lives are spent putting on and taking off masks.

Eisenhower's career demonstrated how it is possible to fool all the people all the time...'I may be stupid,' he once said at a press conference, 'but at least I'm sincere!' Actually, he was neither, but it suited his purpose to play the part of the bumbling man of good will who was 'not an expert in these matters' but somehow would do his best.

Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself.

Always a godfather, never a god.

I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

I write in the morning at a table, longhand on yellow legal pads, just like Nixon, when I’m doing fiction.