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 Image
“It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire,… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“Sometimes you do it to save face, thought Jerry, other times you just do it because you haven't done your job unless… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“For a long moment, while Brock stood off observing them, Ned and Barley appraised one another as only Englishmen can who are… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
Wives?" she asked, interrupting him. For a moment, he had assumed she was tuning to the novel. Then he saw her waiting,… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“there was no future: there was only a continued slide into still more terrifying versions of the present.” — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“There were times when he confronted his own image as a man confronts an empty valley, and the vision propelled him forward… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“However closely we live together, at whatever time of day or night we sound the deepest thoughts in one another, we know… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“Bogus Oxford men he could deal with, just as in his time he had known classics masters who had no Greek and… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“[A]n old writer’s memory is the whore of his imagination. We all reinvent our pasts, I said, but writers are in a… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
There are moments which are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ...” — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“Look, we are getting to be old men, and we've spent our lives looking for the weaknesses in one another's systems... Don't… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
You can't make war against terror. Terror is a technique of battle. It's a tactic that has been employed since time immemorial.… — 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
“He was learning to live on several planes at once. The art of it was to forget everything except the ground you… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“But despite such energetic mental exercise, the ghosts of time present would intrude and drive his dreams away. It was Ann who… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“To Tabitha, these are facts of history. For those of us who endured them, they are a time of despair, bewilderment and… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
“It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire,… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
Out of date, perhaps, but who wasn't these days? Out of date, but loyal to his own time. At a certain moment,… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“After a lifetime of living by his wits and his considerable memory, he had given himself full time to the profession of… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
It is my writing dilemma. The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world,… — John le Carre 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
