Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre.

Diversity has been written into the DNA of American life; any institution that lacks a rainbow array has come to seem diminished, if not diseased.

Dictating to dictators doesn't work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability.

We journalists are never so idiotic as when we analyze things that we shouldn't be analyzing.

We`re facing a very different sort of threat now, a more amorphous threat, al Qaeda, terrorism, and so on. And so the military has abandoned the two-war strategy.

You know, larger than life is always better than smaller than life in politicians. And, you know, God save us from mediocrities.

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.