348 Quotes by John le Carré

We've had enough." He took back the report and jammed it under his arm. "We've had a bellyful, in fact.""And like everyone who's had enough," said Control as Alleline noisily left the room, "he wants more.

Our power knows no limits, yet we cannot find food for a starving child, or a home for a refugee. Our knowledge is without measure and we build the weapons that will destroy us. We live on the edge of ourselves, terrified of the darkness within. We have harmed, corrupted and ruined, we have made mistakes and deceived.

Everyone who is not happy must be shot.

New prisoners are largely of two kinds -- there are those who for shame, fear or shock wait in fascinated horror to be initiated into the lore of prison life, and there are those who trade on their wretched novelty in order to endear themselves to the community. Leamas did neither of these things. He seemed pleased to despise them all, and they hated him because, like the world outside, he did not need them.

... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ...

Put it this way, George,” he suggested, when he had savoured the night air for a moment. “You traveling on business, or for pleasure in this thing? Which is it?Smiley’s reply was also slow in coming, and as indirect: “I was never conscious of pleasure,” he said. “Or perhaps I mean: of the distinction.

Wives?" she asked, interrupting him. For a moment, he had assumed she was tuning to the novel. Then he saw her waiting, suspicious eyes, so he replied cautiously, "None active," as if wives were volcanoes.

Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.

Don't give it to them all at once, make them work for it. Confuse them with detail, leave things out, go back on your tracks. Be testy, be cussed, be difficult. Drink like a fish; don't give way on the ideology, they won't trust that. They want to deal with a man they've bought; they want the clash of opposites, Alec, not some half-cock convert.