348 Quotes by John le Carré

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you can.

To possess another language is to possess another soul.

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.

Agents of disruption, subversion, sabotage and disinformation tunnelers and smugglers, listeners and forgers, trainers and recruiters and talent spotters and couriers and watchers and seducers, assassins and balloonists, lip readers and disguise artists.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

Luck's just another word for destiny ... either you make your own or you're screwed.

The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.

The one thing you can bet is that spying is never over. Spying is like the wiring in this building: It's just a question of who takes it over and switches on the lights. It will go on and on and on.