I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.

Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm.

By repetition, each lie becomes an irreversible fact upon which other lies are constructed.

I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end.

It was a charming fantasy of romantics that the spies would stop spying, that political conflict would end and politicians would tell the truth. Unfortunately that has not been the case.

Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.