154 Quotes About Espionage



  • Author Mick Herron
  • Quote

    But the first bedtime story he ever did read me was Kim.' River could tell she recognised the title, so didn't elaborate. 'After that, well, Conrad, Greene. Somerset Maugham.''Ashenden.''You get the picture. For my twelfth birthday, he bought me le Carré's collected works. I can still remember what he said about them.'They're made up. But that doesn't mean they're not true.

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  • Author John le Carré
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    Haydon had found his charm again. He could do that at the drop of a hat. He drew you and he repelled you. I remember that exactly. He danced all ways for you, playing your emotions against each other because he had none of his own.

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  • Author Leo Marks
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    There were only three things which SOE's agents could anticipate with confidence. That their parachutes would open, that their L-tablets would kill them, and that their messages from London would be accurately encoded.

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  • Author Leo Marks
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    The bloody-minded resilience with which they responded to disasters, especially those of their own making, their determination to liberate their territories no matter what, had been my first glimpse of what would one day be known as the Spirit of Resistance.

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  • Author John le Carré
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    This is a war," Lemas replied. "It's graphic and unpleasant because it's fought on a tiny scale, at close range; fought with a wastage of innocent life sometimes, I admit. But it's nothing, nothing at all besides other wars - the last or the next.

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  • Author Sun Tzu
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    Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move. An army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears.

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