But I think the real tension lies in the relationship between what you might call the pursuer and his quarry, whether it's the writer or the spy.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.

When the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by its madmen but by the sanity of its experts and the superior ignorance of its bureaucrats.

After all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.

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

I don't think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity.

What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They're a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.