Quote

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.

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
Every
Suspects
Smiley
Things
Centre
Lavish
Never
Cat
Stray
Concern
Spy
Compassion
Lightly
Theory
Suspect
Went
Immoral
Rather
Quantum

More quotes by John le Carre

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Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.
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There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.
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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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Home's where you go when you run out of homes.
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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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For better or worse, I've been involved in the description of political conflict.
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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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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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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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Luck's just another word for destiny... either you make your own or you're screwed.
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...also took for granted that secret services were the only real measure of a nations political health, the only real expression of its subconscious.
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All men are born free: just not for long.
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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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I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton
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And the ideologies trailed after these impossible events like condemned prisoners, as ideologies do when they've had their day. Because they have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.
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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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It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D.
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History keeps her secrets longer than most of us. But she has one secret that I will reveal to you tonight in the greatest confidence. Sometimes there are no winners at all. And sometimes nobody needs to lose.
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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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Survival...is an infinite capacity for suspicion.
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