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

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

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

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

The only reward for love is the experience of loving.

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

Blackmail is more effective than bribery.

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

Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever even if your whole world seems upset.

Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

I think you just have to take the bad with the good and you're going to get hurt more, but it's worth it.

Every day, human beings are worth less. That's the triumph of capitalism. The money gets made, and the fewer people we need to make that money.

The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he has to make others see.

I cannot look at modern buildings without thinking of historical ones.

I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.

Do not be afraid of what God asks of you! It is worth saying 'yes' to God. In him we find joy.

I think I've probably re-invented myself three or four times now, if that's what one calls it.

Much of the shadow banking sector, a major contributor to the economic crisis, was also only possible because of taxhaven secrecy.