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

He has the gift of quiet.

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

When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

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

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

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.