Quote

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat.

John le Carre

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John le Carre
Age: 89 †
Born: 1931
Born: October 19
Died: 2020
Died: December 12
Actor
Film Producer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Spy
Writer
Sweetwater
Texas
David John Moore Cornwell
David Cornwell
John le Carre
Experience
Otherwise
Cheating
Away
Neither
Wholly
Become
Reach
Fades
May
Childhood
Cheat
Ever
However
Plane
Detachment
Parents
Planes
Fade
Wise
Pretend
Regarding
Parent
Monsters
Monstrous

More quotes by John le Carre

Image
For decades to come the spy world will continue to be the collective couch where the subconscious of each nation is confessed.
John le Carre
Image
I'm really a library man, or second-hand book man.
John le Carre
Image
For better or worse, I've been involved in the description of political conflict.
John le Carre
Image
Cheats, liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a departmental canteen.
John le Carre
Image
It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?
John le Carre
Image
In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.
John le Carre
Image
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
Image
The cold war provided the perfect excuse for Western governments to plunder and exploit the Third World in the name of freedom to rig its elections, bribe its politicians, appoint its tyrants and, by every sophisticated means of persuasion and interference, stunt the emergence of young democracies in the name of democracy.
John le Carre
Image
There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.
John le Carre
Image
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
Image
It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.
John le Carre
Image
Love means having something to betray.
John le Carre
Image
Most people like to read about intrigue and spies. I hope to provide a metaphor for the average reader's daily life. Most of us live in a slightly conspiratorial relationship with our employer and perhaps with our marriage.
John le Carre
Image
In the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery.
John le Carre
Image
Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain.
John le Carre
Image
Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.
John le Carre
Image
It struck him as a bit unfair that, at the age of eight, he should have manifested the same sense of solitude that haunted him at forty-three.
John le Carre
Image
He has the gift of quiet.
John le Carre
Image
I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.
John le Carre
Image
Everyone who is not happy must be shot.
John le Carre