John le Carré quotes - page 3

If I could generalize about my work in intelligence in those days, for better or worse, we counted ourselves an elite with a very considerable responsibility: to speak truth to power, like good journalists, that whatever we came upon, however offensive it was to those in power, we told it straight. (John le Carré)
Where I kick myself is where I think I actually contributed to the myth of the intelligence services being very good. View quote
John le Carré
There are some Arabs who think that the Germans did the right thing by the Jews. This makes it easy to recruit Arab terrorist. View quote
John le Carré
We were both hybrids: I by birth, he by education. We had both taken too many steps away from the country that had borne us to belong anywhere with ease. View quote
John le Carré
I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself. View quote
John le Carré
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 novels under my belt. View quote
John le Carré
The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead. View quote
John le Carré
If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level. View quote
John le Carré
In the last 15 or 20 years, I've watched the British press simply go to hell. There seems to be no limit, no depths to which the tabloids won't sink. I don't know who these people are but they're little pigs. View quote
John le Carré
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, to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters, whether it's his readership or his spy masters. And I think that both professions are perhaps rather lonely. View quote
John le Carré
Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news. (John le Carré)
I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention. View quote
John le Carré
History keeps her secrets longer than most of us. But she has one secret that I will reveal to you tonight in the greatest confidence. Sometimes there are no winners at all. And sometimes nobody needs to lose. View quote
John le Carré
For better or worse, I've been involved in the description of political conflict. View quote
John le Carré
Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie. View quote
John le Carré
Most people like to read about intrigue and spies. I hope to provide a metaphor for the average reader's daily life. Most of us live in a slightly conspiratorial relationship with our employer and perhaps with our marriage. View quote
John le Carré
Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that. View quote
John le Carré
You should have died when I killed you. View quote
John le Carré
You have no idea how humiliating it was, as a boy, to suddenly have all your clothes, your toys, snatched by the bailiff. I mean we were a middle-class family, it's not as if it was happening up and down the street. It made me ashamed, I felt dirty. View quote
John le Carré
Who do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They're a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors, too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs? I'd have killed Mundt if I could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens they need him. They need him so that the great moronic mass that you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me. View quote
John le Carré
Nothing in life... even a few broken bones, is without its reward. (John le Carré)
To operate an intelligence network against the Islamist terror is terribly difficult because they don't have a central command and control center such as we would understand. Therefore you cannot penetrate at the top and find out what will happen on the ground. View quote
John le Carré
After all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him. View quote
John le Carré
People who've had very unhappy childhoods are pretty good at inventing themselves. If nobody invents you for yourself, nothing is left but to invent yourself for others. View quote
John le Carré
Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves. View quote
John le Carré