“Americans have no idea of the extent of their government’s mischief… the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.”

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.

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.

I started a grease fire at McDonald’s – threw a match in the cook’s hair.

The glint of mischief in your eyes is the flint in my matchstick. Striking; always this close to igniting.

Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property… Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.

You have your look. That lethal fusion of mischief and innocence, the one that maddens statues with lust.

A peace-mingling falsehood is preferable to a mischief-stirring truth.

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous.

Something that just came out of me. It was a bit of mischief.

Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war.