John le Carre Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

• 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

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

  John le Carre

  Spy, Population, Literature

• 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

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

  John le Carre

  Movie, Book, Reading

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

  John le Carre

  War, Literature, Shade

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

• Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.

  John le Carre

  Heart, Angel, Self

• 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 happen to write by hand. I don't even type.

  John le Carre

  Writing, Hands, Literature

• 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

• You should have died when I killed you.

  John le Carre

  Should Have, Literature, Should

• We lie to one another every day, in the sweetest way, often unconsciously. We dress ourselves and compose ourselves in order to present ourselves to one another.

  John le Carre

  Fake People, Lying, Reality

• The longing we have to communicate cleanly and directly with people is always obstructed by qualifications and often with concern about how our messages will be received.

  John le Carre

  People, Literature, Messages

• Americans believe that if you know something, you should do something about it.

  John le Carre

  Believe, Literature, Should

• I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price.

  John le Carre

  Maturity, Democracy, Age

• 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 don't think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity.

  John le Carre

  Thinking, Literature, Given

• I taught principally German language and literature at Eton. But any master with private pupils must be prepared to teach anything they ask for. That can be as diverse as the early paintings of Salvador Dali or how bumblebees manage to fly.

  John le Carre

  German Language, Bumblebees, Literature

• The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.

  John le Carre

  War, Long, Literature

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

• In the last 15 or 20 years, I've watched the British press simply go to hell. There seems to be no limit, no depths to which the tabloids won't sink. I don't know who these people are but they're little pigs.

  John le Carre

  Pigs, Years, People

• I've always had difficulties with female characters.

  John le Carre

  Character, Female, Literature

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

• America has entered one of its periods of historic madness, but this is the worst I can remember.

  John le Carre

  America, Literature, Madness

• We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.

  John le Carre

  Years, Political, Spy

• I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself.

  John le Carre

  Thinking, Two, Laughing

  Interview with Andrew Ross, www.salon.com. October 28, 1996.

• Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that.

  John le Carre

  Literature, Fool, Language

• More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature.

  John le Carre

  Literature, Century, Made

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