The Man Who Never Was,' by Ewen Montagu, remains the best book about wartime espionage written by an active participant - incomplete, and dry in parts, it nonetheless summons up the ingenuity and sheer eccentricity of those who played this… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“Eccentricity is one of those English traits that look like frailty but mask a concealed strength; individuality disguised as oddity.” — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“When told to do something, he tended to “obey not the order which he had actually been given by a superior, but rather the… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“Martin Luther had written “Know, Christian, that next to the devil thou hast no enemy more cruel, more venomous and violent than a true… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“The policemen agreed they were living with a most peculiar fellow. One moment he was reading classical literature in the original French and quoting… — Ben MacIntyre Copy Share Image
“In a brilliant lecture written in 1944, C. S. Lewis described the fatal British obsession with the “inner ring,” the belief that somewhere, just… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
I love telling stories, and am almost entirely unable to keep a secret. — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“Before becoming headmaster of Eton, Claude Elliott had taught history at Cambridge University, despite an ingrained distrust of academics and an aversion to intellectual… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
I think I would have been a hopeless spy. I love telling stories and am almost entirely unable to keep a secret. — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“The word most consistently used to describe Kim Philby was "charm", that intoxicating, beguiling and occasionally lethal English quality.” — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“Professor J. B. S. Haldane was one of the most celebrated scientists in Britain. A pioneering and broad-ranging thinker, he developed a mathematical theory… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“Far from being repelled by the duplicity around him, Elliott felt ever more drawn to the game of skulduggery and double cross. The Venlo… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
“CAPTAIN RAMIREZ: “Ootunondumi rabo Caaguazu.” FRANCISCO: “Bokinmaginum sinking.” RAMIREZ: “Help.” — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
Libraries are not just for reading in, but for sociable thinking, exploring, exchanging ideas and falling in love. They were never silent. Technology will… — Ben Macintyre Copy Share Image
