I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches copies of copies until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity doubt uncertainty not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material but because that is the way we humans really are.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

Some people swear by writing courses but whether it really helps American poetry I have doubts.

Every animal has his or her story his or her thoughts daydreams and interests. All feel joy and love pain and fear as we now know beyond any shadow of a doubt. All deserve that the human animal afford them the respect of being cared for with great consideration for those interests or left in peace.

By focusing once and for all on helping the Palestinians build a free society I have no doubt that an historic compromise between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached and that peace can prevail.

The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is doubtless a separation.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced - the just demands of peace and security will be met - or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

I have a huge respect for writers and realise that this is not an area that I find easy. I doubt that I would have the patience in front of a blank sheet of paper to become a writer.

There is little doubt that we are in the midst of a revolution of a much more profound and fundamental nature than the social and political revolutions of the last half century.

There is no doubt that religion had already waned under the onslaught of the Enlightenment but it was Freud who provided the radically new understanding of human nature that made any religious explanation of the whats and whys of our personhood seem naive.