In a completely rational society the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.

That feeds anger and I mean when we went and at last thank heavens got towards peace in Northern Ireland we went for justice within Northern Ireland as well as using security well as well as a political settlement but surely that is the lesson.

Hatred is settled anger.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment neither of them all that conventional but I'm not ready to choose between them yet let alone settle down to the process of writing.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.