“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

Words could paint pictures.

Maybe that’s why it was so easy for you to break me, you can always tear the pages of an open book.

I began writing a book on love because I felt that the United States is moving away from love.

Books are great. A lot of condensed knowledge in the palm of your hand.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.

It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

Her eyes are my favorite book to read.