John le Carre Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.

  John le Carre

  Movie, Book, Reading

• I'm really a library man, or second-hand book man.

  John le Carre

  Reading, Book, Men

• Thank heaven, though, one of the few mistakes I haven't made is to talk about the unwritten book.

  John le Carre

  Mistake, Book, Writing

• I've never been able to write a book without one very strong character in my rucksack.

  John le Carre

  Strong, Book, Writing

• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was the work of a wayward imagination brought to the end of its tether by political disgust and personal confusion. Fifty years on, I don't associate the book with anything that ever happened to me, save for one wordless encounter at London airport when a worn-out, middle-aged military kind of man in a stained raincoat slammed a handful of mixed foreign change on to the bar and in gritty Irish accents ordered himself as much Scotch as it would buy. In that moment, Alec Leamas was born. Or so my memory, not always a reliable informant, tells me.

  John le Carre

  Memories, Military, Book

  "John le Carré: 'I was a secret even to myself'". www.theguardian.com. April 12, 2013.

• I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end.

  John le Carre

  Father, Book, Grew Up

• I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. I don't remember any of his ladies being bookish. So I was entirely dependent on my schoolteachers for my early reading with the exception of The Wind in the Willows, which a stepmother read to me when I was in hospital.

  John le Carre

  Father, Book, Reading

• I made a series of wrong decisions about moderately recent books, and I've sold the rights to studios for ridiculous amounts of money and the films have never been made. That's the saddest thing of all, because they're locked up and no-one else can make them.

  John le Carre

  Book, Rights, Decision

  "John le Carré at the NFT". Interview with Adrian Wootton, www.theguardian.com. October 5, 2002.

• I think that most of my books are part of some process of self-education, often about the places I go to. Most of all, they are about the peculiar tension between institutional loyalty and loyalty to oneself; the mystery of patriotism, for a Brit of my age and generation, where it runs, how it should be defined, what it's worth and what a corrupting force it can be when misapplied. All that stuff is just in me and it comes out in the characters. I don't mean to preach, but I know I do, and I'm a very flawed person. It's quite ridiculous.

  John le Carre

  Loyalty, Running, Book

• In every operation there is an above the line and a below the line. Above the line is what you do by the book. Below the line is how you do the job.

  John le Carre

  Jobs, Book, Lines

  John le Carre (2002). “A Perfect Spy”, p.316, Simon and Schuster

• Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.

  John le Carre

  Baby, Book, Littles

• Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm.

  John le Carre

  Book, Thinking, Dedicated

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

• Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.... There's a feeling of relief and satisfaction when you get to the end. A feeling that you have brought your family, your characters, home. Then a sort of post-natal depression and then, very quickly, the horizon of a new book. The consolation that next time I will do it better.

  John le Carre

  Baby, Book, Home

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