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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.

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
Every
Names
Thirds
Persuasion
Stunt
World
Freedom
Excuse
Elections
Bribe
Perfect
Election
Tyrants
Democracies
War
Western
Provided
Plunder
Means
Politician
Sophisticated
Exploit
Young
Cold
Governments
Emergence
Government
Name
Politicians
Exploits
Appoint
Mean
Democracy
Third
Interference
Rigs

More quotes by John le Carre

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But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.
John le Carre
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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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There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.
John le Carre
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I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end.
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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Unfortunately it is the weak who destroy the strong.
John le Carre
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Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.
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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.
John le Carre
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I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton
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
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Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.
John le Carre
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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.
John le Carre
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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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When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for me is about twenty-two pages. When it's going badly, it isn't really going badly it's just the beginning.
John le Carre
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I think bankers will always get away with whatever they can get away with.
John le Carre
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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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Luck's just another word for destiny... either you make your own or you're screwed.
John le Carre
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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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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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Love means having something to betray.
John le Carre