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.

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

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

The greatest threat to mankind comes from the renunciation of individual scruple in favor of institutional denominators. . . . Real heroism lies, as it always will, not in conformity or even patriotism, but in acts of solitary moral courage. Which, come to think of it, is what we used to admire in our Christian savior

Without a pen in my hand I can't think.

For better or worse, I've been involved in the description of political conflict.

What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?