Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.

Well, It's a Communist country, and the Communists do not reward personal initiative...except by execution.

Once you stop believing in Santa Claus, the whole world just goes downhill.

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it's not there anymore. Our technology was better than theirs.

She didn't strike me as a "crossword in ink" kind of girl

I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.