Quote

A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere.

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
Thinking
Whereas
People
Philosophical
Doubt
Middle
Courses
Course
Posture
Really
Legitimate
Think
Nowhere

More quotes by John le Carre

Image
I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton
John le Carre
Image
Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.
John le Carre
Image
Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm.
John le Carre
Image
Home's where you go when you run out of homes.
John le Carre
Image
Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.
John le Carre
Image
Survival...is an infinite capacity for suspicion.
John le Carre
Image
There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.
John le Carre
Image
Love means having something to betray.
John le Carre
Image
In the last 15 or 20 years, I've watched the British press simply go to hell. There seems to be no limit, no depths to which the tabloids won't sink. I don't know who these people are but they're little pigs.
John le Carre
Image
Luck's just another word for destiny... either you make your own or you're screwed.
John le Carre
Image
What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They're a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.
John le Carre
Image
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.
John le Carre
Image
It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D.
John le Carre
Image
There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.
John le Carre
Image
If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.
John le Carre
Image
I happen to write by hand. I don't even type.
John le Carre
Image
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.
John le Carre
Image
The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.
John le Carre
Image
In every operation there is an above the line and a below the line. Above the line is what you do by the book. Below the line is how you do the job.
John le Carre
Image
There are moments which are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.
John le Carre