Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, also has no executive powers and operates abroad on CIA lines, but with… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
History keeps her secrets longer than most of us. But she has one secret that I will reveal to you tonight in… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
...also took for granted that secret services were the only real measure of a nations political health, the only real expression of… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I wrote 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' at the age of 30 under intense, unshared personal stress and in… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
In the '60s - and right up to the present day - the identity of a member of the British Secret Services… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
It's part of a writer's profession, as it's part of a spy's profession, to prey on the community to which he's attached,… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“Afterwards Smiley always thought of that interview as a fan dance; a calculated progression of disclosures, each revealing different parts of a… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
Most of us live in a condition of secrecy: secret desires, secret appetites, secret hatreds and relationship with the institutions which is… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
In my day, MI6 - which I called the Circus in the books - stank of wartime nostalgia. People were defined by… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
When it comes to recruiting people for the secret world, what the recruiters are looking for is pretty much what I had.… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“I honestly do wonder, without wishing to be morbid, how I reached this present pass. So far as I can ever remember… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I… — John le Carre Copy Share
During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity. — John le Carre Copy Share
“You're history, Donohue. You think countries run the fucking world! Go back to fucking Sunday school. It's 'God save our multinational' they're singing these… — John le Carré Copy Share
When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more… — John le Carre Copy Share
The trouble is, when professional spies go out of their way to make a definitive statement about one of their own, the public tends… — John le Carre Copy Share
Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves. — John le Carre Copy Share
“Pain observed is journalistic pain. It's diplomatic pain. It's television pain, over as soon as you switch off your beastly set.” — John le Carré Copy Share
The greatest threat to mankind comes from the renunciation of individual scruple in favor of institutional denominators. . . . Real heroism lies, as… — John le Carre Copy Share
“and the wood smoke will roll out of the fireplace on to the carpet we paid too much for on that rainy afternoon in… — John le Carré Copy Share
“Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother’s shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Lacon watched the… — John le Carré Copy Share
For decades to come the spy world will continue to be the collective couch where the subconscious of each nation is confessed. — John le Carre Copy Share
The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal. — John le Carre Copy Share
