The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them.

Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth

The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth.

A deliberate plan is not always necessary for the highest art; it emerges.

Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world , and it is not encouraging.

The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.

Euphemism is a human device to conceal the horrors of reality.

For me this is the vital litmus test: no intellectual society can flourish where a Jew feels even slightly uneasy.

To many, Heathrow in August is a paradigm of Hell.

There are dreams that are meant to be shared and dreams to be kept hidden in our hearts. It's sometimes difficult to know which is which.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

Yesterday's fairy tale is today's fact. The magician is only one step ahead of his audience.

You have to thank God for the seemingly good and the seemingly bad because really, you don't know the difference [until we get to heaven].

I am so brave with love and yet, so weak.

The only secret people keep is immortality.

He who walks in the company of fools suffers much. Company with fools, as with an enemy, is always painful. Company with the wise is pleasure, like meeting with kinfolk.

The sun alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited for this motive duty (of moving the planets) and worthy to become the home of God himself.

Consumer electronics is a challenging one.

The next road is always ahead.