“The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied.”

From April 1775 to July 1776, the undeclared war between England and its American colonies smoldered, flared up, appeared to sputter out… It was hardly, ever, a mass rebellion.

Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.

Why not just eliminate the federal income tax?

I don’t even read most reviews, unless there is a potential lawsuit on view.

Since we have literally targeted our enemies, the Pentagon assumes that, sooner or later, rogues will take out our cities, presumably from spaceships.

I’m not paranoid, no. I’m different in that I have enemies. Very real ones.

Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.

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.

Yes, as my swift days near their goal, ’tis all that I implore: In life and death a chainless soul, with courage to endure.

Back in the old days, a man could just get sick and die. Now they have to wage a battle. So my Uncle Bert is waging a courageous battle, which I’ve seen, because I go and visit him. And this is the battle: he’s lying in the hospital bed, with a thing in his arm, watching Matlock on the TV.

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.

We provide food that customers love, day after day after day. People just want more of it.