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I was quite able at the insignificant work I did in MI6, but absolutely dysfunctional in my domestic life. I had no experience of fatherhood. I had no example of marital bliss or the family unit.

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
Work
Domestic
Life
Bliss
Absolutely
Marital
Example
Dysfunctional
Quite
Fatherhood
Family
Unit
Experience
Units
Able
Insignificant

More quotes by John le Carre

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Love means having something to betray.
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When a problem threatens to engulf you, there's nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.
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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.
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The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.
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I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.
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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've never been able to write a book without one very strong character in my rucksack.
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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.
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Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.
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If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.
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I think that all writers feel alienated. ... I know that I do. ... I still feel, as I think most creative people do, absolutely isolated.
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The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time harness it as a good story.
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You should have died when I killed you.
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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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But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.
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Those who are not with Mr. Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall -- just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
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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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I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.
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The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.
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I've got more than one string to my bow, and I thought I'd give this one a twang.
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