62 quotes
Where I kick myself is where I think I actually contributed to the myth of the intelligence services being very good.
Halliwell's Film Companion (1985)
Smiley was not opposed to social distinctions but he liked to make his own.
A Murder of Quality (1962)
He had come to the end of the chase, and was already sickened by the kill.
A Murder of Quality (1962)
Can’t you see it’s the same? The same guns, the same children dying in the streets? Only the dream has changed, the blood is the same colour.
Call for the Dead (1961)
The State is a dream, too, a symbol of nothing at all, an emptiness, a mind without a body, a game played with clouds in the sky. But States make war, don’t they, and imprison people?
Call for the Dead (1961)
I am afraid that as a nation we tend to over-organise. Abroad that passes for efficiency.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
Every writer wants to be believed. But every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.
Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain.
The Mission Song (2006)
Why is it that so many men of small stature have more courage than men of size?
The Mission Song (2006)
A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.
The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)
You can’t experiment with tradition.
A Murder of Quality (1962)
A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, Brother Michael liked to say. A bad man survives but loses his soul.
The Mission Song (2006)
I think what gives my works whatever universality they have is that they use the metaphysical secret world to describe some realities of the overt world.
“Alec, what do you believe in? Don’t laugh—tell me.” She waited and at last he said:
“I believe an eleven bus will take me to Hammersmith. I don’t believe it’s driven by Father Christmas.”
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
No problem exists in isolation, one must first reduce it to its basic components, then tackle each component in turn.
The Mission Song (2006)
If you're in a hole, don't dig, they say.
The Mission Song (2006)
I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.
A Murder of Quality (1962)
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.
It was the other music that he was hearing: the feeling that, while she was telling him one story, he was listening to a different one, and so was she.
A Most Wanted Man (2008)
He hated the Press as he hated advertising and television, he hated mass-media, the relentless persuasion of the twentieth century. Everything he admired or loved had been the product of intense individualism.
Call for the Dead (1961)