Spy Quotes - Page 8

• I think suspense should be like any other color on a writers palette. I suppose Im in the minority but I think its crazy for literary fiction to divorce itself from stories that are suspenseful, and assign anything with cops or spies or criminals to some genre ghetto.

  Jess Walter

  Crazy, Ghetto, Divorce

  6 Copy quote

• Writing about magic is harder than writing about spies because you're dealing with something that doesn't really exist.

  Anthony Horowitz

  Writing, Magic, Harder

  4 Copy quote

• To me it was real war and my life was at stake, and I believe that all those clandestine spy games we played as children helped when the Occupation came.

  Diet Eman

  Children, Real, War

  7 Copy quote

• I played the mom in Spy Kids when I was, like, 27. So it was ridiculous. But [Robert Rodriguez] was like, "You know what? If we do our job right, no one will question it." And nobody did.

  Carla Gugino

  Mom, Jobs, Kids

  "A little white lie made Carla Gugino Troop Beverly Hills' tallest scout". Interview with Erik Adams, www.avclub.com. June 17, 2015.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Facts are subversive. Subversive of the claims made by democratically elected leaders as well as dictators, by biographers and autobiographers, spies and heroes, torturers and post-modernists. Subversive of lies, half-truths, myths; of all those "easy speeches that comfort cruel men.

  Timothy Garton Ash

  Lying, Hero, Men

  Timothy Garton Ash (2012). “Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade without a Name”, p.10, Atlantic Books Ltd

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I should probably bequeath the copyrights to my screenplay for Spies Like Us, just in case.

  Nathan Hale

  Should, Cases, Copyright

  8 Copy quote

• Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Envy, Victory, Looks

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.436

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a long-standing interest in what I like to think of as "forbidden knowledge": methods of unarmed killing, lock picking, breaking and entry, spy stuff, and other things that the government wants only a few select individuals to know.

  Barry Eisler

  Thinking, Government, Long

  "For Barry Eisler, when it rains, it pours". Interview with Mark Schreiber, www.japantimes.co.jp. September 7, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I was a kid, I wanted to be a spy detective or a rock star.

  Jill Sobule

  Stars, Kids, Rocks

  8 Copy quote

• Everybody spies on everybody, I mean, that's just a fact.

  Marco Rubio

  Mean, Nsa, Facts

  "Rubio: Everyone spies on everyone" by Lucy McCalmont, www.politico.com. October 25, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Happy those early days when I Shined in my Angel-infancy. Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And looking back (at that short space) Could see a glimpse of His bright face. When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity.

  Henry Vaughan

  Flower, Angel, First Love

  Silex Scintillans "The Retreat" l. 1 (1650 - 1655)

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Someone responding to the story said 'real spies do not speak like that'. Well, I am a spy and that is how they talk. Whenever we had a debate in the office on how to handle crimes, they do not defend due process - they defend decisive action. They say it is better to kick someone out of a plane than let these people have a day in court. It is an authoritarian mindset in general.

  Edward Snowden

  Real, Nsa, People

  "Edward Snowden, NSA files source: 'If they want to get you, in time they will'". Interview with Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, www.theguardian.com. June 10, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The question that we, as a society, have to ask is, are our collective rights worth a small relative advantage in our ability to spy on other countries and foreign citizens? I have my opinion about that, but we all collectively have to come to our opinion about it.

  Edward Snowden

  Country, Rights, Citizens

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is a spy who is plotting treason, In league with that warm, red rebel, the Heart.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Love, Heart, League

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.406, Delphi Classics

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Most thoughtful people would agree that morality in the absence of policing is somehow more truly moral than the kind of false morality that vanishes as soon as the police go on strike or the spy camera is switched off, whether the spy camera is a real one monitored in the police station or an imaginary one in heaven.

  Richard Dawkins

  Real, Thoughtful, People

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.263, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• From that point on, the extraordinary system of spies and informers which has played an important part in the political work of the French state into our own time took shape. (Sartine, who became lieutenant general de police in 1759, is supposed to have said to Louis XV, "Sire, when three people are chatting in the street one of them is surely my man.") Eighteenth-century police manuals like those of Colquhoun in England or Lemaire in France are no less than general treatises on the government's full repertoire of domestic regulation, coercion, and surveillance.

  Charles Tilly

  Men, People, Political

  Charles Tilly, Gabriel Ardant, Social Science Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Comparative Politics (1975). “The Formation of national States in Western Europe”, Princeton Univ Pr

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed."

  Diogenes

  Kings, Greed, Insatiable

  "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6: The Cynics". Book by Diogenes Laërtius translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fact that other countries spy on their own people or spy on each other does not address the fact that the US is engaged in massive, bulk collection to the tune of 70.3 million telecommunications a month in France of perfectly innocent people. That has nothing to do with protecting the United States, and has nothing to do with really gathering any kind of meaningful intelligence on France. It is an overreach ... and I think the other countries are justifiably outraged .... As one of our founders said: Those who choose between liberty and security deserve neither.

  Jesselyn Radack

  Meaningful, Country, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• Can it be entirely accidental that the most famous fictional spy of them all, James Bond, Number 007, deadly marksman, intriguer, the ultimate man behind the curtain, sexual athlete and ruthless patriot, is also a Scot, as was the author, whose wish-fulfilment he was?

  Linda Colley

  Athlete, Men, Numbers

  Linda Colley (2005). “Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837”, p.132, Yale University Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I find a difference in British spy fiction and American spy fiction. In the American version, it's more militaristic, partly because the CIA has more of the military makeup. Whereas MI6 is more of a cerebral, intelligence-based, relationship-based service, i.e., all they do is recruit people to get information out of them.

  Charles Cumming

  Military, Makeup, Differences

  44 Copy quote

• The idea of aerial military surveillance dates back to the Civil War, when both the Union and the Confederacy used hot-air balloons to spy on the other side, tracking troop movements and helping to direct artillery fire.

  Michael Hastings

  Military, War, Air

  11 Copy quote

• At the end of the day, I like the spy genre, as opposed to the action movie genre, because spies are smart. The successful spies are the smarter spies.

  Doug Liman

  Smart, Successful, The End Of The Day

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.

  Yann Martel

  Clever, Self, Law

  Yann Martel (2007). “Life of Pi (Illustrated): Deluxe Illustrated Edition”, p.170, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do not touch anything unnecessarily. Beware of pretty girls in dance halls and parks who may be spies, as well as bicycles, revolvers, uniforms, arms, dead horses, and men lying on roads - they are not there accidentally. Soviet infantry manual, issued in the 1930's Only the winners decide what were war crimes.

  Garry Wills

  Girl, Horse, War

  7 Copy quote

• Spies could be invaluable in peacetime, once the fighting actually started, their value dropped steeply. When the swords were out, it was the information your own scouts provided that mattered, not reports from unknown people whose veracity you couldn't prove.

  David Weber

  War, Fighting, People

  David Weber (2014). “Safehold Boxed Set 1: Off Armageddon Reef, By Schism Rent Asunder, and By Heresies Distressed”, p.709, Tor Science Fiction

  4 Copy quote

  Show source