America is a nation created by all the hopeful wanderers of Europe, not out of geography and genetics, but out of purpose.

When a reporter sits down at the typewriter, he’s nobody’s friend.

Those 40 or 50 national correspondents who had followed Kennedy since the beginning of his electoral exertions into the November days had become more than a press corps - they had become his friends and, some of them, his most devoted admirers.

When the bus or the plane rolled or flew through the night, they sang songs of their own composition about Mr Nixon and the Republicans in chorus with the Kennedy staff and felt that they, too, were marching like soldiers of the Lord to the New Frontier.

Although Christianity has never been the guarantee of a democratic state anywhere in the world, no democracy has ever thrived successfully for any period of time outside of Christian influence.

I saw Chungking for the first time more than 40 years ago - a city of hills and mists, of grays and lavenders, two rivers shaping it to a point and the cliff rising above me like a challenge.

Always inflation comes gradually; is recognized too late; and can be cured only by ruthless political surgery, which, if delayed too long, proves futile.