“Life is not mathematics, and few things have only one correct answer”

“They say it is a wide road that leads to war and only a narrow path that leads home again.”

“I think people still want to like Barack Obama but are a little puzzled and even, sometimes, disappointed to discover that actually, all things considered, they don't really like him quite as much as they would like to.”

“It is one of the supreme ironies of history that the blessed birth of an only son should have proved the mortal blow. Even as the saluting cannons boomed and the flags waved, Fate had prepared a terrible story. Along with the lost battles and sunken ships, the bombs, the revolutionaries and their plots, the strikes and revolts, Imperial Russia was toppled by a tiny defect in the body of a little boy.”

“All the devil asks is acquiescence; not conflict, not struggle. Acquiescence.”

“Never let your opponent see you cry.”

“There would be no Lenin without Rasputin.”