I've always felt in all my books that there's a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence - providing they have the facts providing they have the information.

Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act it was very difficult - often impossible - for us to share information with the Central Intelligence Agency with NSA with the other intelligence agencies and likewise for them to share information with us.

I think what he's - what he believes and he may be correct I don't know that we have some intelligence information that leads us to know some things about what's going on in Iraq that we haven't revealed to others.

We know that there are unaccounted-for Scud and other ballistic missiles in Iraq. And part of the problem is that since 1998 there has been no way to even get minimal information about those programs except through intelligence means.

Foolishness is rarely a matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information.

It's part of a writer's profession as it's part of a spy's profession to prey on the community to which he's attached to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters whether it's his readership or his spy masters. And I think that both professions are perhaps rather lonely.

Information is not knowledge.

I think reading is important for a variety of things. I mean first of all it's a way to get information and find out what's going on in the world. But also it helps your imagination.

It takes great skill to tell a compelling story in under 60 seconds. These five directors have mastered the format using their talent craft and imagination to provide us with some of the most innovative filmmaking out there today.

It is all very well to copy what one sees but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.