“As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.”

Some of my father’s fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, ‘I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any.’ We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.

A friend was surprised to hear me say that there was not one moment of my past that I would like to relive.

Actually, I can’t remember when I was not writing.

Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.

After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.

My father had lifelong contempt for politicians.

The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.

Remember, I’m West Point, where I was born. My father went there.

Does one ever read a politician’s books?

I know a lot of the Annapolis breed.

To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.

Jews, blacks and homosexuals are despised by the Christian and Communist majorities of East and West. Also, as a result of the invention of Israel, Jews can now count on the hatred of the Islamic world.

In the German concentration camps, Jews wore yellow stars while homosexuals wore pink lambdas.

Europe began as the relatively empty, uncivilized Wild West of Asia; then the Western Hemisphere became the Wild West of Europe. Now the sun has set in our West and risen once more in the East.