Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news.

When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again.

If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.

The one thing you can bet is that spying is never over. Spying is like the wiring in this building: It's just a question of who takes it over and switches on the lights. It will go on and on and on.

Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.

Thank heaven, though, one of the few mistakes I haven't made is to talk about the unwritten book.

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.