Being a victim is more palatable than having to recognize the intrinsic contradictions of one's own governing philosophy.

People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?

There are only two ways we can be beaten: we die or we give up. And we're not giving up.

Back in pre-Revolutionary America cruel and unusual punishment meant the rack and burning at the stake... in more recent rulings it has been taken to mean the absence of cable television and denial of sex-change operations, or just overcrowding in the prisons.

Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know.

Remember, for every shot you fire, someone, somewhere, is making money.

I haven't got any fan mail from Osama bin Laden. I have no reason to believe he reads my stuff I'll never decide for commercial reasons to put something in that endangers our national security. You just can't do that.