War is the most striking instance of the failure of intelligence to master the problem of human relationships.

There was a political failure over the intelligence before and after the war because it was always about WMD and not what was going on on the ground, ... If we had really concentrated on winning hearts and minds, the intelligence would have flowed and we would have seen this coming.

[The intelligence breakdowns that contributed to failure in preventing the Sept. 11 attacks and in assessing Iraq's pre-war weapons arsenal] would encourage me, if anything, ... They need more help.

You can't start at the top.

His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation that he was not cut out for success, and his duty was therefore to ensure only that he failed in the correct and acceptable fashion.

A man may fall many times, but he won't be a failure until he says that someone pushed him.