You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation.

Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.

The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.

The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.

The U.S. is, so far as I know, the only nation which places such extensive reliance on the polygraph. It has gotten us into a lot of trouble.

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.

The FBI, to its credit in a self-serving sort of way, rejects the routine use of the polygraph on its own people.

The only thing I ever withheld from the KGB were the names of two agents whom I personally had known and handled and had a particular feeling for.

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to resolve its reliability, and to present a finished product.

History is nothing if not far-fetched.

Courage isn’t being a dragon. Neither is it behaving like a dragon. Nor is it taking up arms to fight and defeat dragons. Courage is being a lamb standing with poise among dragons.

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one.

Over the weekend, Vladimir Putin scored eight goals during a hockey game. It happened just after he had the goalie executed.

Her bark is worse than her bite.

Don't try so much to form your character - it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best and your character will take care of itself.

I think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.

I suffer from the curse of being multi-talented. There's no doubt about it. Politics and literature have gotten in the way of songwriting.

I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat animals, so I won't wear them.