John le Carre Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.

  John le Carre

  Men, Identity, Persons

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.213, Simon and Schuster

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• Unfortunately it is the weak who destroy the strong.

  John le Carre

  Strong, Weak

  John le Carre (2005). “The Constant Gardener: A Novel”, p.377, Simon and Schuster

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• There's one thing worse than change and that's the status quo.

  John le Carre

  Status Quo, One Thing

  John le Carre (2002). “Smiley's People”, p.302, Simon and Schuster

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• Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.

  John le Carre

  Love, Betrayal, Betrayed

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• People are very secretive - secret even from themselves.

  John le Carre

  People, Secret, Secretive

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• I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton

  John le Carre

  Father, Teaching, Two

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• When it comes to recruiting people for the secret world, what the recruiters are looking for is pretty much what I had. I was unanchored, looking for an institution to look after me. I had a bit of larceny. I understood larceny. I understood the natural criminality in people - because it was - it was all around me. And I have no doubt there was a chunk of it inside me too. Once I found that identity, it took root in me. It exactly - it gelled with the world that I'd known in the past.

  John le Carre

  Past, People, Doubt

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.

  John le Carre

  Fiction, Knows, Fiction Writers

  "Master of the Secret World: John le Carré on Deception, Storytelling and American Hubris" by Andrew Ross, www.salon.com. October 21, 1996.

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• 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 Carre

  News, Literature, Secrecy

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• There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.

  John le Carre

  Writing, Mountain, Impossible

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• There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

  John le Carre

  Fiction, Literature, Subjects

  Interview with Adrian Wootton, www.theguardian.com. October 5, 2002.

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• Power expands through the distribution of secrecy.

  John le Carre

  Power, Secrecy, Distribution

  Interviewed with Pip Ayers, Daily Mail's Live Magazine, July 10, 2011.

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• The greatest threat to mankind comes from the renunciation of individual scruple in favor of institutional denominators. . . . Real heroism lies, as it always will, not in conformity or even patriotism, but in acts of solitary moral courage. Which, come to think of it, is what we used to admire in our Christian savior

  John le Carre

  Christian, Real, Lying

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• 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.

  John le Carre

  Secret, Needs, Tonight

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• I mean, I'm in the business of storytelling, not message making.

  John le Carre

  Mean, Messages, Storytelling

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• It was man who ended the Cold War in case you didn't notice. It wasn't weaponry, or technology, or armies or campaigns. It was just man. Not even Western man either, as it happened, but our sworn enemy in the East, who went into the streets, faced the bullets and the batons and said: we've had enough. It was their emperor, not ours, who had the nerve to mount the rostrum and declare he had no clothes. And the ideologies trailed after these impossible events like condemned prisoners, as ideologies do when they've had their day.

  John le Carre

  War, Army, Technology

  "The Secret Pilgrim". Book by John le Carré, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1990.

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• 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.

  John le Carre

  Artist, Assassins, Smugglers

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• After all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.

  John le Carre

  Enemy, Looks, Fool

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.316, Simon and Schuster

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• For decades to come the spy world will continue to be the collective couch where the subconscious of each nation is confessed.

  John le Carre

  Spy, World, Couches

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• 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.

  John le Carre

  Light, Goes On, Building

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• 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.

  John le Carre

  Unhappy Childhood, People, Literature

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• A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere.

  John le Carre

  Philosophical, Thinking, People

  John le Carre (2002). “The Honourable Schoolboy”, p.115, Simon and Schuster

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• Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

  John le Carre

  Thinking, Childhood, Balance

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• A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.

  John le Carre

  Wise, Experts, Tongue

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• In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.

  John le Carre

  War, Reality, Issues

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