I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

The only reward for love is the experience of loving.

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

Blackmail is more effective than bribery.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.

Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have existence.

Envy is human nature.

Always focus on accomplishments rather than activities.

News is history shot on the wing. The huntsmen from the Fourth Estate seek to bag only the peacock or the eagle of the swifting day.

When you become a good cook, you become a good craftsman, first. You repeat and repeat and repeat until your hands know how to move without thinking about it.

People get nervous driving around corners, thinking they're going to tip over. But you can go soooo much faster through the curves than you realize.

The years go by one after the other; time slips past us with out our being aware of it; we grow old like ordinary men and we shall end like them.

If you are working or you are running a business you have to set aside time and money to invest in your continued formal education and skills acquisition.

There has been no progress in 60,000 years in reducing the psychedelic experience to a known quantity. It is as terrifying, as awesome, as ecstatic, as irreducible to us as it was to them.

As a first time director it's interesting, but not all that different from what I did before. A lot of parts of this job seem to be very similar to running a big company.