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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.

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
Think
Single
Thinking
Information
People
Greatest
Enemy
History
Perversion
Hands
Misuse
Truth
Skillful
Power
Terribly

More quotes by 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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We've had enough. He took back the report and jammed it under his arm. We've had a bellyful, in fact. And like everyone who's had enough, said Control as Alleline noisily left the room, he wants more.
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Home's where you go when you run out of homes.
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In the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery.
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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.
John le Carre
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People who've had very unhappy childhoods are pretty good at inventing themselves. If nobody invents you for yourself, nothing is left but to invent yourself for others.
John le Carre
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Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.
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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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I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.
John le Carre
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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 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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I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent, can you now?
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Out of date, perhaps, but who wasn't these days? Out of date, but loyal to his own time. At a certain moment, after all, every man chooses: will he go forward, will he go back? There was nothing dishounorable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one's own generation.
John le Carre
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Wives? she asked, interrupting him. For a moment, he had assumed she was tuning to the novel. Then he saw her waiting, suspicious eyes, so he replied cautiously, None active, as if wives were volcanoes.
John le Carre
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Every writer knows he is spurious every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.
John le Carre
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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.
John le Carre
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When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again.
John le Carre
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Agents of disruption, subversion, sabotage and disinformation tunnelers and smugglers, listeners and forgers, trainers and recruiters and talent spotters and couriers and watchers and seducers, assassins and balloonists, lip readers and disguise artists.
John le Carre
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There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.
John le Carre
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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.
John le Carre