One of the toughest battles in intelligence is combating conventional wisdom.

What I know concerns me. What I don't know concerns me even more. What people aren't telling me worries me the most.

I'm a big advocate of drones.

No policy has proved more successful in making friends for the United States, during the cold war and since, than educating students from abroad at our colleges and universities.

I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful.

A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book.

I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming.

Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'

One of my favorite little sayings is, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

Future U.S. political leaders – those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me – may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.

I think that Iran with a nuclear weapon is extremely destabilizing. I think it could precipitate a nuclear arms race in the region.

The friend of time doesn't spend all day saying: 'I haven't got time.' He doesn't fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.

Happiness is not giddiness or some overly inflated sense of being.

A major celebrity is a major brand, and major brands pick very critically what other brands they're going to associate with. So an A-list celebrity usually picks an A-list brand.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

If you put into one room everyone who considered themselves a Nietzschean, there would be a bloodbath.

The science about life is very optimistic. Every second, four people in the world die, and six are born. This is optimistic.

Just the whole concept of burlesque, I've always been fascinated with it. I've always collected so many books about burlesque.

You can make money or you can make excuses. Your choice.

Every being is in search of truth, but small fears go on preventing you.

I think there are families that are very kind and supportive of people's ability to change. People who come from such families may go through life without dipping into the dark night.