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Quotes from A Murder of Quality — John le Carré

1931–2020 England

← All quotes by John le Carré

12 quotes

But so many men learnt strength during the war, learnt terrible things, and put aside their knowledge with a shudder when it ended.

A Murder of Quality (1962)

Such an effort being with people—on stage all the time.

A Murder of Quality (1962)

I read a story once about a poet who bathed himself in cold fountains so that he could recognise his own existence in the contrast.

A Murder of Quality (1962)

It was no use relating reports to probability when there was no quantum of knowledge from which to start.

A Murder of Quality (1962)

Was she really so angry when Stella refused to take part in the rat race of gentility?

A Murder of Quality (1962)

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)

You can’t experiment with tradition.

A Murder of Quality (1962)

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

A Murder of Quality (1962)

“These small, out-of-the-way villages are pretty strange places,” he concluded. “Often only three or four families, all so inbred you can no more sort them out than a barnful of cats. That’s where your village idiots come from. They call it the Devil’s Mark. I call it incest.”

A Murder of Quality (1962)

It was from us they learnt the secret of life: that we grow old without growing wise. They realised that nothing happened when we grew up: no blinding light on the road to Damascus, no sudden feeling of maturity.

A Murder of Quality (1962)

John Lansbury had remarked upon it: “You have sales resistance to the dramatic, Brim; the rare gift of contempt for what is urgent. I know of a dozen people who would pay you five thousand a year for telling them every day that what is important is seldom urgent. Urgent equals ephemeral, and ephemeral equals unimportant.”

A Murder of Quality (1962)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John le Carré (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.