“I'm trying to get the terrorist out of the bugaboo category and into the category of a fellow human being.”

“It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian.”

“Most Americans haven't had my happy experience of living for thirteen years in a seventeenth-century house, since most of America lacks seventeenth-century houses.”

“Fraud makes the world go round.”

“A photograph presents itself not only as a visual representation, but as evidence, more convincing than a painting because of the unimpeachable mechanical means whereby it was made. We do not trust the artist's flattering hand; but we do trust film, and shadows, and light.”

“The need for a rational consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.”

“The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.”

“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.”