The longing we have to communicate cleanly and directly with people is always obstructed by qualifications and often with concern about how our messages will be received.

Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain.

The trouble is, when professional spies go out of their way to make a definitive statement about one of their own, the public tends to believe the opposite: which puts us all back where we started.

Survival...is an infinite capacity for suspicion.

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.

A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.