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" Movies have a way of distilling moments in our culture, and 'Gravity' may be the defining film for the lost-in-space year of 2013: Nothing works. "

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" Russia isn't likely to have any more military success in Syria and Iraq than has the United States. "

" During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator. "

" If you walk into the front hallway of the CIA, you will see, on your left, a statue of William 'Wild Bill' Donovan. Bill Donovan was the person who created the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which was America's spy agency during World War II and then kind of morphed into what's now the CIA. "

" Journalists couldn't do their jobs overseas without taking risks, and the same is true for diplomats and intelligence officers. "

" The Founding Fathers' instructions were clear: The right to free speech includes bad speech; it means tolerance of ideas that many find obnoxious. "

" I've tried, in 'Bloodmoney,' to tell a story that gets at the crazy relationship between the ISI and the CIA, these absolutely fascinating, often mutually destructive two scorpions in a bottle kind of relationship that they have. "

" It's easier for China to assert its maritime power by creating artificial islands in the South China Sea than by defying the U.S. Pacific Fleet with an aircraft carrier. "

" Thanksgiving is America's favorite holiday because it's a time when we put aside our cares, much as the struggling Pilgrims did nearly four centuries ago, and eat a gut-busting meal without worrying about the 'out years.' "

" We haven't usually had to face the extreme questions about liberty and order because we're not a nation of extremists. We love freedom and good government both. "

" The secret of any kind of reporting is to go with a guide. So if you, you're going to see Hezbollah in Beirut, you go with someone who knows the local people, and you'll be fine. "

" It's fashionable with the Sarah Palin set to attack Harvard and treat its graduates as elitists. But if you spend any time on campus, you see students drawn from all over the world - an astonishing number these days with roots in Asia - whose chief assets are brainpower and hard work. "

" Machiavelli did believe that it was better to appear to be good than to be good. If you're good, you're just too vulnerable, but if you appear to be good, you get all the benefits plus you can be sneaky and, when necessary, stab someone in the back. "

" The worm of paranoia begins to eat into even the hardest adversary. "

" As Obama prepares to begin the last year of his presidency, he stands in an unusual position on the national stage: He is the rationalist, a creature of intellect rather than emotion. "

" Politicians need to rethink their reflexive invocations of the Second Amendment and the idea that the gun lobby is too powerful to challenge. "

" The CIA in real life, we know, is looking for new kinds of cover. It's looking for new platforms, as they like to say, and it's trying to use the revolution in communications technology, the ability to use all sorts of corporate entities in ways that are hard to detect to get our spies in the places where they need to be. "

" Sometimes James Bond movies drive me crazy. They're fun to watch, but they don't have anything to do at all with what intelligence officers really do. "

" What frustrates U.S. officials is that China sometimes seems more comfortable accommodating a strong United States, as it did in past decades, than partnering with an America that's less dominant. "

" The nation's chronic weakness is its political system, which is nearing dysfunction. If the U.S. can elect better political leadership, it should be able to manage problems better than most competitors. "

" Donald Trump tests the limits of campaign speech. He makes false statements and refuses to correct them. He attacks other religions and ethnic groups, inflaming domestic tension and foreign terrorist rage. "

" Foreign policy is about the execution of ideas as much as their formulation. "

" Maybe it's the spy novelist in me looking for a future plot, but I hope the U.S. and its allies are thinking how to operate 'unconventionally' in Iraq and Syria in ways that undermine the Islamic State. "

" Europeans don't like to talk about intelligence, and they often pretend their countries don't spy. "

" Yes, Europe needs to be more welcoming, but that's only half of it. Muslims need to embrace the obligations of European residence and citizenship. "

" Images sometimes capture particular periods in history. The unreachable green light, beckoning from across the bay in 'The Great Gatsby,' has become a symbol of the yearning of America in the 1920s. "

" Politicians often call for sanctions as a way of sounding tough when they don't want to take riskier measures. "

" Apple chief executive Tim Cook is such a respected figure that it's easy to overlook the basic problem with his argument about encryption: Cook is asserting that a private company and the interests of its customers should prevail over the public's interest as expressed by our courts. "

" At the center of President Obama's strategy for dealing with the Islamic State is an empty space. It's supposed be filled by a 'Sunni ground force,' but after more than a year of effort, it's still not there. Unless this gap is filled, Obama's plan won't work. "

" 2011 was a year in which events rarely turned out as predicted, and when much of the world seemed shrouded in turmoil and uncertainty. It was difficult for government analysts back in Washington to know just where they were on the map, let alone where they were heading. "

" 2011 is one of those years that historians are likely to look back on as a 'hinge.' And the truth, at once frightening and exhilarating, is that we don't know yet which way the door will swing. "