There are only two reasons to sit in the back row of an airplane: Either you have diarrhea, or you're anxious to meet people who do.

I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.

Every time there has been an attempt to disturb it, it led to two things. It led to immediate intense conflict with China, and it led to a reaffirmation in the end, because nobody wanted a major confrontation with China to this principle of a "one China" policy within which Taiwan is finding a place now. Its own position has greatly improved since the Nixon policy. It is richer, it is stronger and it is participating in many international organizations.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it's their fault.

I would say the special experience of American wartime policy in the last 40 years, from Vietnam on, is that the war itself became controversial in the country and that the most important thing we need in the current situation is, whatever disagreements there may be on tactics, that the legitimacy of the war itself does not become a subject of controversy. We have to start with the assumption, obviously, that whatever administration is conducting a war wants to end it.

I have learned, as I wrote, that history must be discovered, not declared. It's an admission that one grows in life.

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.