Strive to make proposed solutions as self-executing as possible. As the degree of discretion increases, so too does bureaucracy, delay, and expense.

Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers - they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.

The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.

We know where they are [Iraq's weapons of mass destruction]. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead.

Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there.

I do lend my books, but I have to be a bit selective because my marginalia are so incriminating.” --Alison Bechdel

How could we be miserable, when there is music?

Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes.

I'm not such a fan of imagination. If you're alive to details, they oftentimes suggest a richer or deeper imaginative line than you would have imagined.

Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.

Life is very important to Americans.

I don't have to accept what you think I should look like and I do not accept what you think I should look like.

Whoever said blondes have more fun hasn't met me.

You take a painting, you have a white, virginal piece of canvas that is the world of purity, and then you put your imagery on it, and you try to bring it back to the original purity.

It's lovely to be old. I've got age, experience and zero personal ambition. No body could corrupt me by anything: possibly a job in the government, a peerage, a quango, I don't want any of it.