What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far far from it but there is no free lunch as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.

I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying toys not included.

The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft every day - the belief even in the face of obstacles that you've got something worth saying.

One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America like America love America and then work.

People are saying that I'm an alcoholic and that's not true because I only drink when I work and I'm a workaholic.

A short saying often contains much wisdom.

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one no less wise to balance it.

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground but a kind word is never thrown away.

I had a 2-week courtship with a fellow student in the fiction workshop in Iowa and a 5-minute wedding in a lawyer's office above the coffee shop where we'd been having lunch that day. And so I sent a cable to my father saying 'By the time you get this Daddy I'll already be Mrs. Blaise!'

It's very important to go back and keep in mind the distinction between handling these events as criminal acts which was the way we did before 9/11 and then looking at 9/11 and saying 'This is not a criminal act ' not when you destroy 16 acres of Manhattan kill 3 000 Americans blow a big hole in the Pentagon. That's an act of war.

Officials at the White House are saying that President Bush hasn't changed his schedule much since the war started. The main difference they say is that he's started watching the news and taping Sponge Bob.

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over... is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

What is not conservative about saying 'Don't go to war unless we go to war properly with a full declaration of war and no other way?'

I'd like to say I'm R&B's savior. Whether that's the truth or not I'm definitely going out there with my mic and my shield to declare 'I am here to save R&B.' I will have the people saying 'Sir there is a man at the musical gates saying he is here to save R&B.'

Not that I regret saying what I believed to be the truth but I regret anything that I might have written or spoken that could have been used in a way to help to foster that atmosphere out of which came the loss of life of Brother Malcolm.

Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.

A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying Tell the truth. Reveal a few secrets here.

And it sends an important message to me because I am sick to death to hear my opponent saying Republicans don't trust me. They do trust me in landslide proportions and they're proving it tonight. We're going to bury that for good.

It's mostly the financial chicanery that's going on. People are saying 'What kind of trust can we put in this market?'

My interactions with Sorkin were agonisingly weird. He is by far the weirdest person I have ever met. I had dinner with him and a few hours before I got an e-mail from his assistant saying 'Sean this does not need to be a long conversation. Aaron is only going to use it to win your trust.'

Because when you have millions of people with this kind of need for gratification and the culture is saying that it's possible for everyone to satisfy all of their needs and desires all of the time there are obviously going to be clashes - clashes of ego.

Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters not how we left it.

As recent as the year 2000 we won elections by saying we shouldn't be the policemen of the world and that we should not be nation building. And its time we got those values back into this country.

Every time somebody tries to go in and reinvent what we do it always ends up being more about technology and sets and flash and dash forgetting the main thing which is interesting people saying interesting important things.