John le Carré quotes - page 4

I don't think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity. (John le Carré)
It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D. View quote
John le Carré
Most people like to read about intrigue and spies. ... Most of us live in a slightly conspiratorial relationship with our employer and perhaps with our marriage. View quote
John le Carré
Smiley's People (1982 TV series) View quote
John le Carré
The only reward for love is the experience of loving. View quote
John le Carré
I think bankers will always get away with whatever they can get away with. View quote
John le Carré
Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers. View quote
John le Carré
I suffer from the same frustration that every decent American suffers from. That is, that you begin to wonder whether decent liberal instincts, decent humanitarian instincts, can actually penetrate the right-wing voice, get through the steering of American opinion by the mass media. View quote
John le Carré
Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen. View quote
John le Carré
He worked for the fleshy side of the Foreign Office and his job consisted of lunching visiting dignitaries whom no one else would have entertained in his woodshed. View quote
John le Carré
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011 film) (John le Carré)
You see a lot - your eyes get very painful. View quote
John le Carré
What the hell do you think spies are? Model philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me, little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants, playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong? View quote
John le Carré
I think what gives my works whatever universality they have is that they use the metaphysical secret world to describe some realities of the overt world. View quote
John le Carré
I taught principally German language and literature at Eton. But any master with private pupils must be prepared to teach anything they ask for. That can be as diverse as the early paintings of Salvador Dali or how bumblebees manage to fly. View quote
John le Carré
My definition of a decent society is one that first of all takes care of its losers, and protects its weak. View quote
John le Carré
I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. View quote
John le Carré
More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature. View quote
John le Carré
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 borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days. View quote
John le Carré
But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state. View quote
John le Carré
The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London. (John le Carré)
It is my writing dilemma. The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time harness it as a good story. View quote
John le Carré
I worked for MI6 in the Sixties, during the great witch-hunts, when the shared paranoia of the Cold War gripped the services. View quote
John le Carré
I was quite able at the insignificant work I did in MI6, but absolutely dysfunctional in my domestic life. I had no experience of fatherhood. I had no example of marital bliss or the family unit. View quote
John le Carré
I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. I don't remember any of his ladies being bookish. So I was entirely dependent on my schoolteachers for my early reading with the exception of 'The Wind in the Willows,' which a stepmother read to me when I was in hospital. View quote
John le Carré