“Sociologists well understand that chaos at home causes violent behavior, educational failure and social alienation among children.”

I think the secret to success is a short-term outlook. So for example, I’m writing the next Killing book now and I have to just make every chapter compelling, so I can’t get too far ahead of it. I just stay in the present and then go over what I have to do.

The Clintons opposed gay marriage. They did don’t ask, don’t tell. They did the Defense of Marriage Act.

That’s my advice to all homosexuals, whether they’re in the Boy Scouts, or in the Army or in high school: Shut up, don’t tell anybody what you do, your life will be a lot easier.

Lotsa people want to hurt me. That’s the price you pay for being a big mouth.

Our philosophy is we call it as we see it. Sometimes you agree, sometimes you don’t. Robust debate is good.

I don’t need the approval of the press, but I just wish they’d stop the viciousness….I never felt sorry for people like Lindsay Lohan in my life. I thought they were dopey little movie stars. Now I feel sorry for those people.

Get punctual, bring energy and creativity to your work, and stay with a project until it’s completed (and then double-check the results). These habits will make you indispensable.

My father firmly embraced the Ralph Kramden philosophy: he was king of his Levittown castle. He worked hard, and his family deferred to his wishes. Except me. I did not defer and was disciplined accordingly.

Traditionalists like me believe the USA has become strong because of its core values, the freedom, individual responsibility and institutions like traditional marriage, which foster common goals.

I’m enamored of any person, a young person, a lesbian, straight, gay guy who wants to go over and kill bad guys for me and my family. That blows me away.

I know that Oswald killed Kennedy. Now, was he pushed? Encouraged to do it by outsiders? Possibly. Possibly. Was he sitting down with Fidel Castro? No.

If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it’s clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.

I mean, that was a throwaway thought, because my focus was – my intent and my focus was to never go public.

A good journalist’s first priority should be to separate propaganda from fact – but sometimes its very hard to do that.

I know that education is all about discipline and motivation. Disadvantaged students need extra attention, a stable school environment, and enough teacher creativity to stimulate their imaginations. Those things are not expensive.

I think that the terrible, disgraceful coverage actually got Donald Trump elected, along with Hillary Clinton’s inability to connect with voters on any level. That’s another thing, she was a terrible candidate.

Service standards keep rising. As competitors render better and better service, customers become more demanding. Their expectations grow.

The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing.

The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organisation and as such rejects totally the notion of an officer class.

The biggest atrocity of all is to indoctrinate our children into a system that does not value their creative expression, nor encourage their unique abilities.

Don’t let failure deter you; use it as a stepping-stone and an educational experience towards making your mark on the world.

Libraries are not just for reading in, but for sociable thinking, exploring, exchanging ideas and falling in love. They were never silent.

Technology will not change that, for even in the starchiest heyday of Victorian self-improvement, libraries were intended to be meeting places of the mind, recreational as well as educational.

We forget the conditions – not only in slavery – but after slavery, when there was this purposeful locking out of African Americans from economic opportunity. Or we forget today’s incarceration rates, and educational and housing discrimination; all of these things.