Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk’s too big, the desk’s too small, there’s too much noise, there’s too much quiet, it’s too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply to start.

By dawn he had surrendered, gratefully, to the old inertia, the product of always seeing both sides of every question.

Working 14 hours a day until you're 55 and missing your kids growing up is not what I would consider a recipe for happiness.

Politics is never a victory, it's just the remorseless grinding forward of events.

If long hitting is the thing that causes the spectators to whistle through their teeth in wonderment, why not play tournaments up and down an expansive stadium?

My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected.

Another of Cicero's maxims was that if you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit to be won by timidity.