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

John le Carre

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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
Literature
Made
Responsive
Oriented
Largely
German
Particularly
Century
Education

More quotes by John le Carre

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I've never been able to write a book without one very strong character in my rucksack.
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The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.
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I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton
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Love means having something to betray.
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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.
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A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere.
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You should have died when I killed you.
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Everyone who is not happy must be shot.
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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.
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Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.
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There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.
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A dead man is the worst enemy alive, I thought. You can't alter his power over you. You can't alter what you love or owe. And it's too late to ask him for his absolution. He has beaten you all ways.
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The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.
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Our power knows no limits, yet we cannot find food for a starving child, or a home for a refugee. Our knowledge is without measure and we build the weapons that will destroy us. We live on the edge of ourselves, terrified of the darkness within. We have harmed, corrupted and ruined, we have made mistakes and deceived.
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When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again.
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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.
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It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?
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A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.
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I once heard someone say morality was method. Do you hold with that? I suppose you wouldn't. You would say that morality was vested in the aim, I expect. Difficult to know what one's aims are, that's the trouble, specially if you're British.
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I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.
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