Wives?" she asked, interrupting him. For a moment, he had assumed she was tuning to the novel. Then he saw her waiting, suspicious eyes, so he replied cautiously, "None active," as if wives were volcanoes.

As our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous.

It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.

Love means having something to betray.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.