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Cheats, liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a departmental canteen.

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
Gentleman
Cheats
Loyalty
Cabbage
Criminals
Appalling
Moved
Gentlemen
May
Respectable
Every
Cheat
Treasons
Liars
Canteen
Resist
Watery

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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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Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.
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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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The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done - dare I say it - in the name of God.
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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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All men are born free: just not for long.
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Luck's just another word for destiny... either you make your own or you're screwed.
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Home's where you go when you run out of homes.
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The greatest threat to mankind comes from the renunciation of individual scruple in favor of institutional denominators. . . . Real heroism lies, as it always will, not in conformity or even patriotism, but in acts of solitary moral courage. Which, come to think of it, is what we used to admire in our Christian savior
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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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It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.
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Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.
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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.
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In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.
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Once you've lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It's a mentality, a double standard of existence.
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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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The one thing you can bet is that spying is never over. Spying is like the wiring in this building: It's just a question of who takes it over and switches on the lights. It will go on and on and on.
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For decades to come the spy world will continue to be the collective couch where the subconscious of each nation is confessed.
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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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Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain.
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