“I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.”

The state is a fragile organization, and the statesman does not have the moral right to risk its survival on ethical restraint.

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies.

For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God

History is the memory of States.

In his essay, ‘Perpetual Peace,’ the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, argued that perpetual peace would eventually come to the world in one of two ways, by human insight or by conflicts and catastrophes of a magnitude that left humanity no other choice. We are at such a juncture.

Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.

When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.

Can governmental orders be invented from scratch by intelligent thinkers, or is the range of choice limited by underlying organic and cultural realities (the Burkean view)?

What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is the emphasis on the psychological and political elements over the purely military.

A Harvard study has shown that in fifteen cases in history where a rising and an established power interacted, ten ended in war.

George Bernard Shaw: There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.

Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.

A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security

I really wanted to write a book [99: Stories of the Game] on the tradition and history of the league, where kids can pick it up and read it and learn things and say, “Geez, I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool.”

I am a beau in nothing but my books.

The experience of writing ‘The Kite Runner’ is one I will always think back on with fondness. There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again.

Life doesn’t come with an instruction book; that’s why we have fathers.

Education today is a process of filling the mind with the contents of books, emptying the contents in the examination hall and returning empty-headed.

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

I’m glad I wrote the book to show what I found out about the [ Standard Oil Company]. I’m glad many people read my book and found out the truth.

Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.