There's always trouble in the Middle East. I can't recall any time in my life when there hasn't been trouble there.

the old ploy of the powerful: never refuse when you can confuse. Distraction and delay are always better than obstruction.

Even a small, everyday lie is a clue to the personality and preoccupations of the liar, like a dream or any other confection of the mind, that is half-conscious and half-unconscious, as all creative acts must be.

Civilization is a fiction which becomes a fact only as long as everyone can believe in it. It is the cynic, rather than the rebel, who pulls down the whole flimsy structure periodically throughout history.

At twenty your choices are almost unlimited. At fifty you're a prisoner of past decisions. At seventy you have no free will left at all.

Other people's children, like other people's love affairs, were so much less interesting than one's own.

That's the worst thing about money - the moment you have some you begin to suspect everyone of trying to take it away from you. And usually they are.