John Le Carré Quotes
By repetition, each lie becomes an irreversible fact upon which other lies are constructed.
Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.
A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere.
Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.
A dead man is the worst enemy alive, I thought. You can't alter his power over you. You can't alter what you love or owe. And it's too late to ask him for his absolution. He has beaten you all ways.
Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.
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.
When a problem threatens to engulf you, there's nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.
They might have you, and they pay badly enough to guarantee you decent company.
Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.
Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.
There comes a moment for all of us when our childhood ceases to be an excuse. In your case, I would say that, as with many English, the moment is somewhat delayed.
The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous
He had the nerve not to drink in a University where you proved your manhood by being drunk most of your first year.
He knew how intelligent men could be broken by the stupidity of their superiors, how weeks of patient work night and day could be cast aside by such a man
I don't break down, " she announced. "Got it?"He got it. He was already pulling back, looking ashamed of himself, but somehow he was still holding her wrist."I never break down. I'm a lawyer.
... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ...
If there's no sea-gull there's no meeting, Wicklow had said. No sea-gull means abort. That's my epitaph, thought Barley. 'There was no sea-gull, so he aborted.
She's become a Russian again, he thought. When something works, she's grateful. When it doesn't work, it's life.
He sees passion in her gray eyes, and it scares him as all passion scares him, his own included.