There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
Writers are two-home men - they want a place outside and a place within. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic. — 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
“A good writer can watch a cat pad across the street and know what it is to be pounced upon by a… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I think that all writers feel alienated. ... I know that I do. ... I still feel, as I think most creative… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I began writing when I was still in the British Foreign Service, and it was then understood that even if you wrote… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby… There's a feeling of relief and satisfaction when you get to the… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I was the British spy who had come out of the woodwork and told it how it really was, and anything I… — 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
Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're… — John le Carre 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
“He has a saying: he'll only believe what can be written on a postcard.” — John le Carré Copy Share Image
It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I've never been able to write a book without one very strong character in my rucksack. — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I want to be like Ford Madox Ford. I want to be talking to somebody across a fire, and I want him… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of… — John le Carre 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
Well, certainly I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
“A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.… — John le Carré Copy Share Image
I made an awful mess of my first marriage. It was hard to live with me being me. I was so abnormal.… — 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
![“[A]n old writer’s memory is the whore of his imagination. We all reinvent our pasts, I said, but writers are in a class of their own.” quote by John le Carré](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/158/john-le-carre-651_autobiographies_a-n-old-writer-s-memory-is-the-whore-of_1720652.jpg)
![“When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for me is about twenty-two pages. When it's going badly, it isn't really going badly; it's just the beginning.” quote by John le Carre](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/917/john-le-carre-651_chapters_when-it-s-going-well-writing-goes-terrib_601245.jpg)
