If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free - however free one can be on this planet.

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.

The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It deter- mines what people will talk and think about-an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.

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.

Closeness to power heightens the dignity of all men.

A President and his wise men can only propose; but Congress disposes. It is when President and Congress agree that American history marches forward.

I, alas, must present myself somewhat ignominiously as a chef in a busy kitchen. Somewhere a novel is bubbling on a back burner, an old attempt at history may come out of the freezer.