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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
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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
Operation
Operations
Line
Lines
Jobs
Book
Every
More quotes by John le Carre
Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.
John le Carre
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
I've got more than one string to my bow, and I thought I'd give this one a twang.
John le Carre
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
If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.
John le Carre
You should have died when I killed you.
John le Carre
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
There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.
John le Carre
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
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.
John le Carre
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.
John le Carre
The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.
John le Carre
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
John le Carre
I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.
John le Carre
I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton
John le Carre
Luck's just another word for destiny... either you make your own or you're screwed.
John le Carre
When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.
John le Carre
But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.
John le Carre
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
Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.
John le Carre