But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

Has Bill Clinton inspired idealism in the young, as he himself was inspired by John F. Kennedy? Or has he actually reduced their idealism? Surely part of the answer lies in Clinton's personal moral lapse with Monica Lewinsky. But more important was his sin of omission - his failure to embrace a moral cause beyond popularity.

You cannot learn anything from success, you only learn from failure.

If you don't accept failure as a possibility, you don't set high goals, you don't branch out, you don't try - you don't take the risk.

We can't have a failure in Iraq, but we also can't be there for the next 10 years because if we are, it's going to become, I think, a failure in and of itself.