"If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman."

"The great men of power who seek to change the nations they belong to usually are pretty terrible people."

"There are certain wicked people in the world that you can't deal with except by force."

"It's commonly said that people who've been ill in childhood and who've had an upset education never really regret that they do. It means that you don't look at the world in the way that other people do, and if you were inclined to be a writer, that's a help."

"We may have to have a geo-political regrouping or major geo-political changes."

"I think that black Africa is extremely terrifying. Black Africa can become a maelstrom of warring tribes without the outside world needing to feel the need to do anything about it."

"Even a pacifist should admire the military virtues."

"Nobody should teach anywhere for 25 years, but I did."

"The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him to men of his time and place as the leader they want and need."

"Soldiers, when committed to a task, can't compromise. It's unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it's been done."

"Men killing other men really is an extraordinary phenomenon. Why does it happen? And how long has it gone on? And have the motives changed?"

"I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books."

"Well, if they are trying to kill you, on the whole they're the people you have to kill, aren't they?"

"I don't look to find an educated person in the ranks of university graduates, necessarily. Some of the most educated people I know have never been near a university."

"It's a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble."

"Good men who exercise power are really the most fascinating of all people."

"The great Chinese classics have always said that it's better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought."