“It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.”

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.

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.

If you are a Representative and want to be a Senator, you must be careful not to do anything which might upset the various forces you need to harness to get elected.