John le Carre Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• There was nothing dishonourable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one's own generation.

  John le Carre

  Wind, Choices, Generations

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.26, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  14 Copy quote

• If you see the world as gloomily as I see it, the only thing to do is laugh or shoot yourself.

  John le Carre

  Laughing, World, Things To Do

  "John le Carré, The Art of Fiction No. 149". Interview with George Plimpton, www.theparisreview.org. 1997.

  5 Copy quote

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

  John le Carre

  Love, Betrayal, Betrayed

  29 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• My definition of a decent society is one that first of all takes care of its losers, and protects its weak.

  John le Carre

  Care, Definitions, Firsts

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• Once you've lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It's a mentality, a double standard of existence.

  John le Carre

  Double Standard, World, Standards

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  6 Copy quote

• No problem exists in isolation, one must first reduce it to its basic components, then tackle each component in turn.

  John le Carre

  Firsts, Problem, Isolation

  "The Mission Song". Book by John le Carre, September 2006.

  6 Copy quote

• Everyone who is not happy must be shot.

  John le Carre

  Not Happy, Shots

  14 Copy quote

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

  John le Carre

  Father, Teaching, Two

  19 Copy quote

• I worked for MI6 in the Sixties, during the great witch-hunts, when the shared paranoia of the Cold War gripped the services.

  John le Carre

  War, Cold, Witch

  5 Copy quote

• Most of us live in a condition of secrecy: secret desires, secret appetites, secret hatreds and relationship with the institutions which is extremely intense and uncomfortable. These are, to me, a part of the ordinary human condition. So I don't think I'm writing about abnormal things. ... Artists, in my experience, have very little center. They fake. They are not the real thing. They are spies. I am no exception.

  John le Carre

  Real, Writing, Artist

  19 Copy quote

• It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?

  John le Carre

  Spy

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.74, Simon and Schuster

  67 Copy quote

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

  John le Carre

  Writing, Mountain, Impossible

  15 Copy quote

• Without a pen in my hand I can't think.

  John le Carre

  Writing, Thinking, Hands

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  24 Copy quote

• 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

  32 Copy quote

• All power corrupts but some must govern.

  John le Carre

  Power Corrupts

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.235, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  6 Copy quote

• Jesus Christ only had twelve, you know, and one of them was a double.

  John le Carre

  Jesus, Twelve, Christ

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.192, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

Page 2 of 8

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin