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It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?

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
Spies
Spy
Oldest
George
Question

More quotes by John le Carre

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Luck's just another word for destiny... either you make your own or you're screwed.
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There are moments which are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.
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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 used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.
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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.
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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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Every writer knows he is spurious every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.
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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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Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.
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Unfortunately it is the weak who destroy the strong.
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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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I'm really a library man, or second-hand book man.
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I made a series of wrong decisions about moderately recent books, and I've sold the rights to studios for ridiculous amounts of money and the films have never been made. That's the saddest thing of all, because they're locked up and no-one else can make them.
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But I think the real tension lies in the relationship between what you might call the pursuer and his quarry, whether it's the writer or the spy.
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The cold war provided the perfect excuse for Western governments to plunder and exploit the Third World in the name of freedom to rig its elections, bribe its politicians, appoint its tyrants and, by every sophisticated means of persuasion and interference, stunt the emergence of young democracies in the name of democracy.
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There is a big difference between fighting the cold war and fighting radical Islam. The rules have changed and we haven't.
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The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.
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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.
John le Carre
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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 don't think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity.
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