John le Carre Quotes

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John le Carre

Profession : Writer

Birth : October 19, 1931

SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, also has no executive powers and operates abroad on CIA lines, but with a tiny percentage of the budget and a tiny percentage of the personnel.

John le Carre

I think, increasingly, despite what we are being told is an ever more open world of communication, there is a terrible alienation in the ordinary man between what he is being told and what he secretly believes.

John le Carre

The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days.

John le Carre

Totalitarian states killed with impunity and no one was held accountable. That didn't happen in the West.

John le Carre

I happen to write by hand. I don't even type.

John le Carre

Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news.

John le Carre

But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.

John le Carre

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

John le Carre

Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.

John le Carre

I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got one immediately available to them, then they usually manage to manufacture it in their private lives.

John le Carre

America has entered one of its periods of historic madness, but this is the worst I can remember.

John le Carre

I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself.

John le Carre

You should have died when I killed you.

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

If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.

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

The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.

John le Carre

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.

John le Carre

There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

John le Carre

If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.

John le Carre