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

More quotes by John le Carre

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Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London.
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For better or worse, I've been involved in the description of political conflict.
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Luck's just another word for destiny... either you make your own or you're screwed.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.
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People like you should be stopped, Mr. Woodrow,' she mused aloud, with a puzzled shake of her wise head. 'You think you're solving the world's problems but actually you're the problem.
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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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I'm really a library man, or second-hand book man.
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All men are born free: just not for long.
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I don't think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity.
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The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.
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Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.
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As our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.
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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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Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.... There's a feeling of relief and satisfaction when you get to the end. A feeling that you have brought your family, your characters, home. Then a sort of post-natal depression and then, very quickly, the horizon of a new book. The consolation that next time I will do it better.
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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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