John le Carre Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• In itself, the practice of deception is not particularly exacting; it is a matter of experience, of professional expertise, it is a facility most of us can acquire.

  John le Carre

  Practice, Deception, Matter

  John le Carre (2001). “The Spy Who Came In from the Cold”, p.120, Simon and Schuster

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• There will be no war, but in the pursuit of principle no stone will be left standing.

  John le Carre

  War, Principles, Stones

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• Look... we're getting to be old men, and we've spent our lives looking for the weaknesses in one another's systems. I can see through Eastern values just as you can see through our Western ones. Both of us, I am sure, have experienced ad nauseam the technical satisfactions of this wretched war. But now your own side is going to shoot you. Don't you think it's time to recognise that there is as little worth on your side as there is on mine?

  John le Carre

  War, Men, Thinking

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• What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?

  John le Carre

  Misery, These Days, Journalist

  John le Carre (2002). “The Honourable Schoolboy”, p.35, Simon and Schuster

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• 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.

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• The pharmaceutical corporations are engaged in the systematic corruption of the medical profession, country by country

  John le Carre

  Country, Vaccines, Systematic

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• Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.

  John le Carre

  Want

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• 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

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• There are moments which are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.

  John le Carre

  Stuff, Too Much, Moments

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.358, Simon and Schuster

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• 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

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• I can't think of anybody worse to live with.

  John le Carre

  Thinking, I Can

  John le Carre (2004). “The Russia House: A Novel”, p.93, Simon and Schuster

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• Let's die of it before we're too old.

  John le Carre

  Dies

  John le Carre (2002). “The Honourable Schoolboy”, p.137, Simon and Schuster

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• The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London.

  John le Carre

  Opposites, Intelligence Services, Secret

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• Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London.

  John le Carre

  Punishment, Skins, London

  John le Carre (2002). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

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• I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got one immediately available to them, then they usually manage to manufacture it in their private lives.

  John le Carre

  Thinking, Tension, Private Life

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• When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again.

  John le Carre

  Feelings, Age, Sometimes

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• I've always had difficulties with female characters.

  John le Carre

  Character, Female, Literature

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

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• I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention.

  John le Carre

  Order, Chaos, Stills

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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

  John le Carre

  Writing, Hands, Literature

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• 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

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• When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

  John le Carre

  Age, Stories, Belts

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• Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.

  John le Carre

  Writing, Work Out, Imagination

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

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